let's get right into it so we're gonna be talking about George Washington's presidency today now George Washington was president right he's the first president right the you know one dollar bill man he's on the one dollar bill it's on the quarter very important and he was president from 1789 to 1797 so the very first president to terms and we're gonna talk about some of the important things that happened during his presidency cuz his presidency was really really important so let's get into it one of the first things that happens in George Washington's presidency is the passage of the Bill of Rights now the Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments to the Constitution remember we talked about last a couple weeks ago that in order to amend the Constitution you had to go through this really lengthy process you know you needed a large percentage of congressional votes to amend the Constitution that you couldn't just you know you can't erase anything out of the Constitution you actually had to add to it and so the Bill of Rights comes about because there were a lot of anti federalists who were a bit nervous about the new powerful central government under the Constitution they worried that this new powerful central government would abuse its power just like you know the king had during the Revolutionary era and so they these anti federalist guys like James Madison and George Mason wanted some assurances some assurances from the government that it wouldn't just trample on people's rights and so the Bill of Rights were written in 1789 and then ratified two years later in 1791 and they're the first 10 amendments to the Constitution so let's check them out and I think you'll see a trend here because many of the amendments deal with things that were prevalent or issues during the revolution like check it out okay you guys should be familiar with most of these right number one First Amendment freedom of the press freedom of religion freedom of assembly you know the you know free speech the free speech amendment number two right to bear arms number three quartering of troops right that was a big deal the Corps of troops in people's homes in places like Boston so you know that was written into the Bill of Rights now that's that's amendment number three number four unreasonable search and seizure number five and six and seven are all kind of related to trials five is due process you know that you can't incriminate yourself this is where you get and and you know television shows and movies where people will say that they plead the fifth right they don't want to incriminate themselves number six trial by jury right that you have the right as an American citizen to be tried by people that are that bitter your peers and then number seven same thing but this time civil trials right that you have the same rights and in criminal trials and in civil trials number eight no unusual punishment and that you can't hold people for excessive bail nine which basically is that there are still ripe that are not specifically enumerated here and then number ten is that all things that are not listed in the Constitution go to the states right so like empowering states for things that the federal government can't do and so as you can see these ten amendments deal with a lot of the problems that anti-federalists had in a way the many of the anti-federalists signed on to the Constitution because they were people were already talking about passing these bills of rights right the guaranteeing these rights to American citizens so you know so many of these amendments address the fears of central government so that's the Bill of Rights you know one of the foundational parts of our governmental system and from here you know of course this was 1791 Americans have continued to add on to the amendments and we now have twenty seven amendments so seventeen additional amendments have been passed after the Bill of Rights but that's not the only thing that happened during Washington's presidency that was important there were a lot of other things too so Washington was the first president to have what we call a cabinet a cabinet is basically like a group of close advisors guys that the president leans on to get things done right because the president can't be everywhere once he has to have people who helped him make decisions you know economic decisions military decisions financial decisions right all of these things are important and so George Washington put together the first cabinet bringing together guys that were experts in various things right like John Adams becomes it he's the vice president so he is part of the cabinet Thomas Jefferson guy that wrote the Declaration he's the secretary of state excuse me Alexander Hamilton you know he was at the Constitutional Convention he becomes the Secretary of Treasury and not all of these men agreed in fact there were significant disagreements amongst the people in Washington's cabinet particularly between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton because Jeffrey Washington had both Federalists strong Federalists like Alexander Hamilton in his cabinet alongside anti-federalists like Jefferson and so this battle between these two forces between the anti-federalists and the Federalists is going to continue into Washington's presidency and so let's look at kind of how that shapes the early government this battle between competing ideologies in kress so on one side we have Hamilton's plan so Hamilton is the secretary of the Treasury and he has a very specific idea for how he wants to run the government how he wants to build the new economy right because that's what we're talking about Washington's the first president and so we're essentially this is the first time that the government is running under the Constitution now you have to understand who Alexander Hamilton is Hamilton is from New York he's a staunch staunch Federalist meaning that he believes in the in the power of big government right a a a big government that can do a lot of things and he'll actually looked at Great Britain as a model for some of the things that he wanted to do and one of the things that he wanted to do was empower banks banking and businesses were a big part of the Federalist mindset and powering business is empowering big finance was something that he really wanted to do and he believed that if he did that if he was able to empower banks if he was able to empower finance yours and business men that that would grow the economy Alexander Hamilton wanted to grow the economy he saw the u.s. as a potential superpower as someone who could be a powerhouse globally not just regionally but around the world and so Alexander Hamilton wants to create a national bank and he is successful in doing this right he believes that creating a national bank would allow him to do the things he needed to do to empower businesses to give loans to companies and this sort of thing and what Hamilton is doing is he's using something that we refer to as implied powers that's a term that you should know implied powers because the Constitution like the document itself was written a little vaguely in parts and it was written vaguely on purpose because the founding fathers wrote some pieces of it so that you could interpret it in different ways and Hamilton adopted what we call a loose interpretation meaning he read a lot of things into the Constitution he saw implied powers right powers that may not have been explicitly written but that he believed the government had anyway right that's what implied powers are is that their power is given the federal government that aren't specifically written in the Constitution but that people like Hamilton believed existed anyway so here's what Hamilton proposed he's like we need to create a National Bank and we need to pay off our national debt remember after the Revolutionary War a lot of the states were in debt we saw that when we talked about Shay's rebellion and how farmers were being taxed and and how they revolted because of it and so Hamilton's plan was rather than having each state kind of pay off their own debt what if we rolled it all into one big debt pile and created a national debt right what if we created a national debt he thought this would be good it would give the u.s. a new line of credit with Europe right rather than European nations having to deal with like Virginia and Massachusetts and Connecticut they would just deal with the United States government right so it streamlines the process Hamilton thought this was a great idea giving the federal government power over the debt he believed that was part of those implied powers and he also believed that the United States should use tariffs right taxes on imported goods to protect American industry you know so you can see what he's doing here is he's like we need to protect our industry while at the same time consolidating our debt into one national debt as a way to boost the economy because he believed that if we consolidated our debt that Europe would be more willing to deal with this we could loan them money they would loan us money and the economy would would rise okay so that's Hamilton's plan remember Hamilton's a federalist okay so let's look at opposition the opposition for most is going to come from Thomas Jefferson the Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson in this moment had a polar opposite view to Hamilton Thomas Jefferson worried about Hamilton's plan he was like look you you're basing your plan on England but we just fought a war to get away from England so why would we want to do what they're doing and so Jefferson worried that Hamilton's plan would require a close relationship with England he wasn't willing to risk that you know Hamilton believed the Federalists Hamilton right he believed that the future of America was in banking and in big cities and in industry and market economies up in the Northeast whereas Jefferson had a very different idea of what the future of the United States would look like Jefferson believed that the future lay out west with farmers he believed Americans should push west and go and try to farm and and kind of like harness the land so to speak Jefferson's ideal Society was a republic of small independent farmers essentially he didn't mind cities because he did liván he lived in Paris for a number of years but it was that he believed in the power of the working class the power of farmers out in the countryside living on their own being kind of like rugged individuals so to speak and part of the reason why he believed that this kind of agrarian Republic would be the best form of government is because Thomas Jefferson feared political corruption he feared centralized political power he believed that a strong central government would be inherently corrupt and there's also kind of some state-level stuff going on here as well so remember Hamilton wants to take the debt and to like push it all together right just take everybody every States debt and just like throw it all into one big pile well there's a reason why he wanted to do that so Hamilton was from New York and and New York had been very slow about paying off their debt from the Revolutionary War they still had a substantial sum left to pay whereas Jefferson is from Virginia and his state had already paid off their debt so Virginia had already paid off their debt from the Revolutionary War and he's like why should we join with you guys like why should we roll why should we all roll our debts together when it's you guys that can't pay your debts and so there's this you know there's a state level problem going on here too it's so so they disagree on numerous levels right one is like the big picture what should the country look like right Hamilton wanted a a society dominated by cities and businesses in the market economy Jefferson wanted a society dominated by an agrarian farming culture where states were more powerful than the central government and so Jefferson is very much the opposite of Hamilton remember Hamilton saw implied powers and he was he believed in like a loose interpretation of the Constitution not Jefferson Jefferson believed in a very strict interpretation of the Constitution you can see on the screen right here that I've got this written out as what's called strict constructionism the idea that if it's not written in the Constitution you can't do it right you had you have to read the Constitution literally and if it's not in there then that power belongs to the states and so there's actually a big disagreement here between the two of them over what powers the government should have now if you want I'm gonna include some links in the message that I send out to you guys like the announcement that I put out the the musical Hamilton does two fantastic pieces about the cabinet battles they're really good one of them is actually on this screen right here and I'm gonna include the links in the message so if you want pause this video go watch that one because it's amazing if you pull up the lyrics so you can really follow along with what they're saying cuz they're rapping and sometimes it can be a little difficult to understand them but you know pull up the lyrics listen to that cabinet battle it's really fantastic because it pits you know Hamilton against Jefferson and I think you guys will enjoy so pause this video and then come back okay welcome back I hope you guys watch the video now let's talk about the founding of political parties because the political parties nowadays they're ubiquitous right we always think of politics in terms of political parties right Republican and Democrat you know and yeah there are third parties right we've talked about them before that you know there's the Green Party and the Libertarian Party and and and the Socialist Party but they're small right the two but we are dominated by a two-party system but the country didn't start that way the country did not start off as a two-party system in fact George Washington and many of the other founding fathers worried about political parties they saw them as a corruptive corrosive force in American politics they thought that parties could threaten the New Republic that if one party got too much power it would dominate politics and like crush the other party and so George Washington was very anti political parties in fact he himself was not a member of a political party he's I think the only president that actually is not a member of a political party at all he now he does lean towards the Federalists alright the Federalists the Federalists were political party and he leaned more with them than with the knot when they're done with the democratic-republicans but he himself was not a member of the Federalist Party guys like James Madison who was wanting that the writer of the Constitution a very famous statesman he believed the political parties could be okay as long as they remained small you know and he thought that in the future political parties would be around that that they would be pretty small and lots of them you know they'd be very numerous and that they would compete with one another for votes and he was like that could be a healthy system and so during George Washington's presidency we're gonna see the first political parties form and so this is what is often called the the first party system the first party system is where you have two big political parties that come to dominate all of the politics in the United States so the first party system and we'll talk more about this as we kind of go through the semester because there are three party systems in American history and we're still in the third one so you know we've had changes over time okay so let's talk about how these parties form what are their ideas you know who are the guys like pushing the levers you know so let's let's talk about the formation of the first political parties now in order to understand where these political parties sit ideologically we have to actually go outside of the country and talk about France so in the 1790s France is undergoing a revolution and the so the French Revolution lasts from 1789 to 1799 and Thomas Jefferson is a big fan of the French he is definitely what we would call a Francophile meaning he loved France he actually served as an ambassador to France for many years under the Articles of Confederation he wasn't even around when the Constitution was written because he was busy hanging out in France being an ambassador even during the Revolutionary War Thomas Jefferson was over in France he's one of the reasons why the French government started to help the Americans because he was over there working as a diplomat so when the French Revolution breaks out you have to understand what happens in the French Revolution for this to make sense so basically and I'm this is the French Revolution is very very complicated and I'm giving you like a very shortened version of it so France the French people basically overthrew the king the people were starving having a tough time they overthrew the king they eventually cut off his head then there's like this period of violence they create a republic then there's more violence and then eventually napoleon's gonna take over right so it's just this period of chaos in many ways in France right and there are periods where there are strong men running the government cutting the heads off of people using guillotines they also try to have these Republic's you know they then fall out of favors it's a very complicated environment so Thomas Jefferson remember he's a guy that loves France and he is over here in the United States looking at the French Revolution and he thinks it's great he believes the French Revolution was a victory for self-government and you kind of it makes sense from a Thomas Jefferson perspective right because Thomas Jefferson is an American now he didn't fight in the Revolutionary War right but he believed in the ideas of it because he wrote the Declaration right he believes that people should be free from kings and monarchs and so here in the French Revolution you have the overthrow of a monarch and so Thomas Jefferson was like this is good right this is a good thing that people are rising up and overthrowing monarchs right monarchies so he view this as a victory for self-government all over the globe he was like this is great this is excellent on the other hand so that's Jefferson on the other hand George Washington and people like Alexander Hamilton were afraid of the French Revolution they took a totally different lesson away from it they looked at the French Revolution and solved violence and they're like oh man look at what's happening over in France right the poor people the common folks are rising up they're killing the king they're killing major political leaders you're literally cutting off their heads and so Washington and guys like Hamilton looked at the French Revolution and saw anarchy and chaos and violence and they were like this is way too radical like we can't have something like this influence our politics and so in 1793 the United States is going to issue a proclamation of neutrality that the u.s. is not going to get involved in the French Revolution which to Jefferson was kind of a slap in the face because remember France had come over and helped the Americans in the Revolutionary War right they were critical to winning things like Yorktown and so to say that we're not gonna go help them Jefferson was like dude you're leaving our buddies out there you know to dry right you're leaving them out there and and actually there's another video on this the the musical Hamilton did another cabinet battle and so if you want to go watch it you'll see the link up here on the screen right there right here and so if you want to pause this video and go watch that video I'll post it in the in the letter that I send to you guys as well you know so I would recommend it again it's a it's a rap battle so you know you might want to get the lyrics and follow along but it's really really good and this one's over the French Revolution and how the u.s. is gonna handle it so pause the video real quick go watch that if you want and then come back okay I hope you wouldn't watched it so you know and I just told you a minute ago that France that the u.s. is not gonna go help France right the u.s. is going to remain neutral and it's not gonna get involved in the problems between England and France or the French Revolution so we're going to we're going to see out of this moment two distinct political parties develop and let's talk about them individually so we got the Federalists and we have the Democratic Republicans okay so we're gonna talk about the Democratic Republicans first that's Thomas Jefferson up here at the top right he's the leader of the Democratic Republicans he is seen as the the main guy James Madison also a significant Democratic Republican too so here what did they so the democratic-republicans believed and what we would call today like kind of like popular politics meaning power to the people right remember what Jefferson's ID main ideology or his vision for the United States was a it was a society of farmers right a society of simple people living on their own property working the land having a vote you know but kind of keeping to themselves and so he the Democratic Republicans embraced this idea of popular politics right they firmly believed in the power of people and voting rights for large amounts of Americans so that's one thing that they believed in another factor or another ideal for the Democratic Republicans is that they supported France this obviously has a connection to Thomas Jefferson Jefferson a big supporter of French politics and the French government and so the Democratic Republicans are going to be linked with kind of a support of France another thing that another marker of the Democratic Republicans is who their supporters are many of their supporters are who you would expect southern planters right people who own large plantations farmers urban artisans right so we're talking more of like the lower crust of American society you know people who maybe live a little more simple of a lifestyle in the case of southerners though big landowners right you got it Thomas Jefferson himself owned a plantation in Virginia owned slaves numerous slaves a lot of them actually and so many plantation owners saw kind of a kindred spirit with Thomas Jefferson and so you know Thomas Jefferson's gonna sell this idea of widespread government participation right that more people need to be involved in the political process that we need to get more people you know to be landowners and spread out west and try to create this agrarian Republic and Jefferson as a result of this kind of push for a more egalitarian society or or a more equal society in some ways is very critical of inequality meaning that he wants to rise raise more people up to the point where they can get involved in government um so he's gonna be critical of socio-economic inequality not counting racial issues right he's a slave owner Thomas Jefferson is and so racial issues he's not gonna deal with those very much no so that's the democratic-republicans on the other side of this political debate we have the Federalists the most important Federalists is Alexander Hamilton um George Washington is also kind of tangentially a federalist but he's not a member of the party remember so Alexander Hamilton is the main guy um and he's a big supporter of George Washington Alexander Hamilton and George Washington had a very close working relationship okay so who are the Federalists so the Federalists are very different than the Democratic Republicans their supporters are wealthy business owners merchants right uh elites right people at the upper crust of society oftentimes from the north right the Democratic Republicans pulled their support from the west and the south whereas the Federalists were really popular in places like New York all right big cities with lots of Commerce lots of trade lots of banks and businesses so they're gonna be pulling from kind of the wealthy elites of society the Federalists also believed in a social hierarchy and you know I don't mean like a strict you know like exact hierarchy but more so the idea that there were social classes and that that was a good thing right they believed that the wealthy should rule Society to put it simply Alexander Hamilton himself was kind of a rags to riches story you know he was a guy who grew up very poor as an orphan and then rose up to be one of the most powerful men in the country and so that kind of tainted his view of politics is like well if I can do it then anybody can do it and so he believed that as a result the wealthy people should rule because they have proven themselves to be the leaders of society so to speak and so Hamilton and other Federalists believe that the of social classes was okay and that the wealthy ruling society was a good thing right that wasn't beneficial for everybody and because they believe the wealthy should run society they had a fear the Federalists did they feared mass politics they feared popular involvement in politics right and so remember that's what Thomas Jefferson wants Jefferson is pushing this idea of more involvement politically bringing more people in right and Hamilton's like no we want to keep that away right we want to restrict who is involved politically who we want to restrict who can be a leader in this society because if we allow to many people in if we allow too many votes then that's gonna lead to anarchy and again you see the connection with the French Revolution here that that was a lot that was a mass uprising and so Alexander Hamilton's like now if we allow everybody to get involved in politics that's what could happen is a mass uprising of the poor and so they're gonna shy away from kind of widening the circle of who's involved in politics here so those are the two parties the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans very very different parties almost totally polar opposite ideologies the one thing they did have in common though is that the men that ran those parties are all wealthy white dudes right while the Democratic Republicans try to appeal to more of like the lower middle classes the dominant people in those parties are all wealthy white elites educated you know usually from the East Coast okay so the significance here of these political parties is that it's gonna set the stage for the duality that we see today right even today we have two political parties that are divided ideologically they're divided by ideology they're divided by region often right the South right now heavily Republican whereas like the coasts are often very democratic the two parties are divided by wealth maybe not so not as much today but perhaps back then definitely the Democratic Republicans were definitely seen as more of the poor man's party than the Feder lists they can also be divided by occupation right the people who are supporting the democratic-republicans are farmers and and kind of low-level merchants and stuff like that whereas the people who are supporting the Federalists are wealthy elites bankers and that serveth sort of thing and another piece of significance of the political parties is that they're going to EV and flow over time right the Federalists aren't around anymore mo neither the Democratic Republicans really not in the same way at least and so you know we're going to be tracing this evolution over the course of this semester so keep that in mind that you know while we're talking about the first party system here later on it's gonna change new political parties will come in old parties will fade away some parties will appear and then disappear very quickly you know like the Constitution party which kind of like ups and it like comes and goes occasionally and so keep that in mind you'll you'll you'll see what I mean with with the ebb and flow over the course of the semester okay so now you have an idea of like what the government looked like who's involved who are some of the big players here so one of the biggest things that well I guess the most important things that why shouldn't had to deal with during his presidency was the Whiskey Rebellion Whiskey Rebellion okay so let's set the stage here it's 1791 about 1791 to 1794 so we're in Washington's first and second term we're in western Pennsylvania so we're kind of like out in the farmland western Pennsylvania right former middle colony important state for the revolution right Philadelphia but we're out west so we're kind of like out in the out in the fields and a lot a lot of the farmers out in this western Pennsylvania area were growing corn corn very Hardy crop you can grow in a lot of different kind of climates but corn is not always easy to sell in like a market reason being is because you had to actually it goes bad quickly and so you have to you know pick it and then get it to the market really fast which isn't always feasible alright some of these farmers you know if you want to pick the corn and then get it to the market that costs money like transportation costs and these sorts of things and so a lot of farmers could struggled to sell all their crops so what they would do is instead of like what they couldn't sell if they had a bunch of if they had went to corn they sold some of it and then they couldn't sell the rest of it that part that they couldn't sell they would take it and then turn it into whiskey they started distilling the leftover corn which is really smart right they're taking something that they couldn't sell otherwise and making a new product out of it and so they start making money on the sale of whiskey in fact some of them just stop selling corn altogether as a crop and just start producing whiskey because you know corn has such a short shelf life and so they were having trouble selling and they're like you know what I'm just gonna start yeah I'm just gonna be a whiskey to still or like you know screw this selling corn business let's just go out there and make some money on getting people drunk basically in life and it worked you know people will out in western Pennsylvania started making money by distilling corn and creating whiskey so Alexander Hamilton he's the secretary of the Treasury at the time and remember he believes in a strong firm central government and so he starts remember he and his other idea Alexander Hamilton was that we needed to pay off the debt we need to pay off the national debt we're gonna roll it all together and we're gonna pay it off all at once and so to do that though and as you guys know we've talked about this numerous times already in order to pay off the debt you have to raise taxes right you have to that raising taxes is the quickest way to pay off the debt if you're a government so Alexander Hamilton is looking for ways to pay off the debt and he sees all these whiskey distillers these corn farmers out in the western Pennsylvania making money and so he's like all right I'm gonna put a tax on whiskey we're gonna tax whiskey and we're going to make money of the the farmers out in western Pennsylvania off of their whiskey businesses now you guys might remember Shay's rebellion back under the Articles of Confederation right you had a bunch of farmers who were struggling they got taxed they banded together basically had a rebellion took over Springfield Armory and then like had to get put down by a militia so in in the 1790s the exact same thing happens in western Pennsylvania you have a a group of farmers corn farmers they don't like paying the tax they don't like the fact that the government is you know meddling in their lives they think it's unfair many of them are Revolutionary War veterans you know into their mind like I said the other day in class they're kind of like you know man I fought the government under Great Britain I'll do it again like I'll go out here and you know have another tax rebellion essentially and so they start attacking tax collectors in western Pennsylvania mobs attack the homes of tax collectors just like what happened in the Revolution you know and what they're doing is they're trying to send a message like hey if you keep taxing us we're going to keep attacking these tax collectors and we're not paying our taxes you know these farmers they refuse refuse to pay their taxes but George Washington is the president right and Washington understands that it's important for people to pay the taxes not necessarily because he wants to take it out on these farmers but because to Washington they're defying the law right the taxes the law if you're not paying the tax you're defying the law and so George Washington argued that we need to make these people pay their tax and so he told the state he told Pennsylvania he's like look man you guys got you have to get these farmers in line like they have to pay their taxes Pennsylvania tried to get the farmers in line but they wouldn't they were unruly still attacking the tax collectors attacking individual tax you know people and so George Washington is like screw it I'm going out there myself I will go out there and lead a army and figure it out and so literally George Washington gets on a horse puts together the you know the what is left of the American military and rides out into western Pennsylvania to try to figure out what's going on out with these uh these whiskey rebels now at first it seemed like he was gonna go like Washington had every intention of actually go fully going out there and be leading the charge against these rebels and then other people like Hamilton were like maybe it would be a good idea if you didn't do that you're the president now and we can't have you just dying out here in the field it's like that would be bad so instead Washington he gets about halfway and is like yeah you know what that's probably a good idea so he turns around and goes home and Alexander Hamilton takes over Alexander Hamilton another Revolutionary War veteran takes over command of the troops and is like we're gonna go out here and put down this whiskey rebellion so Hamilton leaves 13,000 men that's a large number that's a big army for the time 13,000 men out into western Pennsylvania to put down the rebellion and one of the most amazing things about the rebellion is they couldn't find any rebels and if you're wondering well how does that work the people were so scared of this big army so Alexander Hamilton would come rolling into town you know 13,000 people at his back and they basically go up to farmers and be like hey we heard there was a whiskey rebellion happening out here what do you know about it and the farmers would be like nothing never never heard of it you know and so everywhere they went they went to multiple different places asking farmers like who is leading this whiskey rebellion and at every single place they're like they got a big nothing like the no one would fess up to being a part of this rebellion and so in its own it was very anticlimactic right because the shays rebellion was you know the gunfight at Springfield and the militia had to get raised up and and you know have this climactic battle you know where the the rebels are gonna lose and the whiskey rebellion none of that happens like all these troops are basically wandering around like looking for a fight and there's no fight to be found because the farmers are scared to fight the military understandably and so what this event showed because this is a really really important event the the whiskey rebellion what it shows us is that under the new constitution the government is so much more powerful than it was under the Articles of Confederation right under the Articles remember the government couldn't raise an army it couldn't even acts people at all and when the when Shay's rebellion happened the government had no idea what to do they basically folded at first and it's like well we don't know what to do even the state of Massachusetts didn't know what to do because these rebels just took over Springfield Armory and they had to raise a militia to put it down whereas in the whiskey rebellion George Washington was like now let's go like bring the military like let's get on out there thirteen thousand strong right and it shows that the the new constitution has created a much stronger more stable central government that the this new government under the Constitution is much more capable of running the country and keeping problems at bay than the Articles of Confederation was you know the fact that George Washington was gonna lead the troops also kind of like his icing on the cake right in fact he becomes the in this event Washington becomes the only sitting president to lead troops into battle they didn't actually have a battle but they if they would have you know so he's the only sitting president ever actually lead like physically lead troops into what could have been a battle but again just to reiterate the big significance of the Whiskey Rebellion is that it shows that this new government under the Constitution is much more powerful than the government under the Articles of Confederation that this whiskey rebellion was put down with ease whereas Shay's rebellion you know caused the whole like Constitutional Convention right it caused whole crisis within the Articles of Confederation now much more stable much more powerful central government so let's finish up by talking about the end of Washington's presidency so Washington is a is routinely listed in the top three top five at the very least top five presidents of all time and every single list you can find he's always really highly up there and part of the one of the big reasons why he's listed so highly up there is because of the decisions he made near the end of his presidency he served for two terms right from he was elected in 88 served to 1792 and then was re-elected and then served a seventeen and then served out his second term what ended in 1797 and in 1796 it's it's an election year Washington could have run for a third term right there was no there's nothing in the Constitution or at least at the time there wasn't there was nothing in the Constitution that said no you were only limited to two terms he could have run for three and there were a lot of people who actually wanted him to run for a third term they thought that it would have been really good if Washington ran for term number three they thought that would help the the country move forward and he decided not to Washington makes the decision to step down after two terms now if you're wondering why a lot of it was health-related Washington at this point was an older man he was suffering from illnesses and his health was just declining as an older man and so to him it wouldn't have made he worried that if he would have you know ran for a third term it's possible that he would have died in to that term and then that would have been bad and so he's like you know what I'm just gonna step down and let somebody else be President and the reason why this decision is so important is because it sets a precedent right there's no there was no rule that said he had to step down but it sets a precedent that other people are going to follow every president from this point forward until the 1930s right literally you know what is it like a hundred fifty years for a hundred and fifty years presidents always step down after two terms there's no rule they just did it because that's what Washington did and people thought that that was a great gesture relinquish n't happen in Europe or like to these guys that's one of the reasons why they thought it was such a great noble thing to do was that Kings don't just give up power they just keep it until they die and Washington's like no we need to set a new precedent I'm gonna give up my authority and let someone else take the reins so that's one reason why Washington is widely seen as one of the greatest presidents ever another is because he gave a final speech in during his presidency that became known as his farewell address you'll see it listed sometimes in other ways but usually people call it Washington's farewell address and in this speech Washington argues that the United States needs to build itself up internally and avoid outside problems which makes a lot of sense when you look at it from his perspective when I mean outside problems I mean problems in Europe he used the the I can remember exactly how he phrased it but he said we need to avoid a lying with Europe right we need to avoid getting entangled with European nations because if you think about it from Washington's perspective during his presidency France had been a total disaster right they were fighting the revolution Kings had been had their heads cut off they eventually had a war with England Napoleon that you know and he was just like that seems like a mess and if we get involved in that it could make us a mess too and so he was like we need to avoid these entangling alliances with Europe right these these problematic alliances that might happen with Europe and so in his speech he kind of lays out American foreign policy for the next hundred years from this moment from Washington's presidency really through about 18 the 1890s the u.s. is going to be very isolated it's gonna really keep to itself now it does fight a war with England in 1812 but aside from that the u.s. by and large remains isolated and so unless something happens to it and so and that's a result of Washington's presidency right he lays down this idea that we need to avoid European problems because if we get involved over there it will just drag us in and so he believed that by staying out of European problems it would keep America safe and you know for about a hundred years that's exactly what other presidents did was avoided getting too close to European nations the other thing that he said in his farewell address that was really important was that he condemned political partisanship now a partisan means is a term that describes somebody that is on that is a member of a political party and they're very in favor of that party right they're a partisan they are a not necessarily like a radical or anything but someone who believes very fervently about that political party and Washington looked at political parties as a huge potential problem you know that they could drive Americans apart that you might have in a way Washington kind of worried about what's happening to American society today which is the idea that there are two parties that are like polar opposites and can't even really talk to one another right they struggle to even just make the most basic of deals with each other and Washington worried that that would be what political parties would do would that they would lead to a society that is just permanently divided by politics and I think that's one reason why he didn't join a political party was just to say like I'm kind of above that partisan fray like I don't want to get involved in it and he also worried that if political parties came to be the rule the way that politics worked in the United States was that again this is very prescient like he basically almost sees the future in this way he worried that one political party would come into power and then another party would come into power after it and undo what the previous one did and then that vicious cycle would just happen over and over again and that's kind of the way politics is has been for the last you know 15 20 years so to speak and Washington worried about this all the way back in 1797 you know and that's pretty remarkable you know that he that some of the things that afflict modern society Washington kind of saw them happening all the way back at the founding of the country and so just to kind of you know recap the lecture here so we've been talking a lot about the the early republic today right the very first bits of how the government ran and so you know you have the competing ideologies right on one side or the other right you would have the Hamiltonians over here who believed in a stronger central government who wanted to empower wealthy and and kind of really restrict access to voting rights you had the Democratic Republicans over here or though the Thomas Jeffersonians who believed that we needed to have an agrarian society based on you know providing more votes for people who were perhaps poor or you know working-class expanding the electorate so to speak and those two mindsets are going to develop into the first political parties right the Democratic Republicans in Thomas Jefferson and then the Federalists with Alexander Hamilton and so all of this that we've been talking about Washington's farewell that the two political parties the you know the cabinet even the Bill of Rights all of these things that we've talked about in this lecture are going to influence the next to let the next lecture that we're gonna you're gonna watch so in the next lecture we're going to talk about John Adams the the second second president Adams and how he is going to run the country and then the what I call the the peaceful revolution of 1800 right or the revolution of 1800 where Thomas Jefferson becomes president in 1800 and so I really look forward to teaching you guys about that I hope you've enjoyed this video