Posted on 01/30/2017 4:32:44 AM PST by gaggs
Who was the first president of the United States? Ask any school child and they will readily tell you “George Washington.” And of course, they would be wrong—at least technically. Washington was not inaugurated until April 30, 1789. And yet, the United States continually had functioning governments from as early as September 5, 1774 and operated as a confederated nation from as early as July 4, 1776.
(Excerpt) Read more at commonsenseevaluation.com ...
Please do not bring fake news to FR. if you want to discuss John Hancock, by all means discuss him.
Yes but not under our constitution. Caretakers until the states were all combined and the federalists and anti federalists were able to reach agreements.
Presidents of conventions, continental congresses, and the congress of the confederation are not Presidents of the United States.
Nor is the current President of the US Senate, Mike Pence.
None of those men were President of the United States.
Interesting history. Thanks for posting.
The men who happened to be president of the Congress under the Articles of Confederation were called “President of the United States in Congress Assembled.” Their powers were very slight compared to those granted to the President of the United States by the Constitution (let alone those usurped by Presidents in the past 100 years or so).
The Constitution is our second frame of government. We had Presidents under the first frame, too.
See 4
We did not have Presidents under the Articles of Confederation.
Remember it was a confederation of states that each had a governor and had been running their own affairs for years during the war, no new super-executive position was thought necessary at the time.
Later events led people to believe that an executive would be necessary and that is one of the big reasons that the new constitution was written and adopted.
I've never before seen the entire list or pre-president presidents, as it were.
And it's pretty easy to guess why, ahem, some people take umbrage at the suggestion that there was a Union, with a Congress and President, even before colonies themselves became states.
Indeed, it was the Union itself which declared colonies to be states... those are fighting words to some people.
But I appreciate the list, and will save it for future reference.
Congress chose the President.
See Article IX of the Articles of Confederation
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