The sky was as bright as George Washington’s blue dress uniform as he strode triumphantly into Independence Hall on Nov. 28, 1781. It was shortly after noon in Philadelphia, but it was dawn throughout America. Just weeks before, the British had surrendered at Yorktown and the newly christened government of the United States of America had convened for the first time to elect its new leader — John Hanson of Maryland. As Washington entered the chamber, his gaze fell upon Hanson, the first “President of the United States in Congress Assembled.” The man occupying what Washington once called “the most important seat in the United States” rose to his feet and congratulated the general on his “glorious success” in defeating the British.
Although Hanson held the nation’s highest office nearly a decade before Washington, don’t expect to find his image alongside old George’s familiar visage in department store circulars and used car lots as they roll out their Presidents’ Day specials today. The man some historians argue was truly the country’s first president was long ago swept into the dustbin of history.
Washington has been the subject of countless tomes; Hanson has barely inspired footnotes.
However, both men led remarkably parallel lives — on opposite sides of the Potomac River. Hanson was born into a prominent family in Port Tobacco, Md., and spent much of his life on a plantation less than 20 miles away from Washington’s beloved Virginia estate, Mount Vernon. Both men were prosperous merchants, slave owners and devout patriots.
Hanson’s political career began in 1750, when he was appointed sheriff of Charles County, Md., and in 1757 he was elected to the Maryland General Assembly. America’s forgotten first president was one of Maryland’s leading opponents of the Stamp Act and other onerous measures passed by the British Parliament. When war broke out, Hanson spearheaded the recruitment of troops and procurement of arms in Frederick County, his new home.
When Hanson was elected as a Continental Congress delegate in 1779, Maryland was the lone holdout in ratifying the Articles of Confederation, the proposed national constitution that required unanimous consent by all 13 states. Maryland refused to join until other states ceded their individual claims to lands west of the Appalachian Mountains to the central government, and Hanson played an important role in getting them to agree. On March 1, 1781, Hanson and fellow Maryland delegate Daniel Carroll affixed their signatures to the Articles of Confederation, which created a new national governing body, the “United States in Congress Assembled,” and provided for the annual election of one of its members as president.
When the unicameral Congress met for the initial time on Nov. 5, 1781, its first official act was to unanimously elect Hanson its president. With his health failing and his heart heavy after the loss of two children, Jane and Samuel, just months before, Hanson would rather have been free to return home, but he accepted the position out of his sense of public duty.
The new president had little executive power and more closely resembled a presiding officer, but Hanson clearly viewed his duties as more than merely ceremonial. “The load of business which I have very unwillingly and very imprudently taken on me I am afraid will be more than my constitution will be able to bear,” he wrote to his son-in-law, Dr. Philip Thomas, just eight days after his election. The president offered to resign — but was persuaded by his fellow delegates to remain on the job.
Hanson’s declining health made it increasingly difficult for him to keep up with the job’s requirements, which included presiding over legislative sessions, receiving foreign ministers, writing correspondence to state governors, and signing all laws, treaties and official papers. In January 1782, Congress agreed to transfer primary responsibility for writing letters to the states from Hanson to the secretary of the Congress, Charles Thomson, “in order that the President may be relieved from the business with which he is unnecessarily encumbered.” When Hanson took seriously ill in the spring of 1782, a special measure allowed his old colleague Carroll to temporarily preside over the Congress, although he lacked the authority to sign any official documents.
Despite these obstacles, the Congress under Hanson’s one-year tenure accomplished much in the critical months after the victory at Yorktown. America’s nascent government chartered a national bank, signed treaties with Holland and Sweden, launched the Post Office, created the Great Seal of the United States, and designated the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving. With his presidential term complete in November 1782, Hanson retired from Congress, and he passed away little more than a year later on Nov. 22, 1783, at Oxon Hill Manor in Prince George’s County, Md.
The Articles of Confederation proved to be a bug-filled operating system for America, too weak to govern the country and lacking executive power, but it set the stage for the vastly improved Constitution Version 2.0 and the presidency of George Washington. Like a bad childhood memory, the Articles of Confederation era has been mostly purged from America’s collective history, along with Hanson and the seven men who succeeded him as “President of the United States in Congress Assembled.”
So complete has been our collective forgetting that Hanson’s precise burial place is unknown; indeed, he remains something of a historical enigma, with his birthdate listed variously as 1715 and 1721. His face is so unrecognizable that he’s been confused with a black senator in the African nation of Liberia who shared the same name, which has fueled Internet speculation that Hanson — not Barack Obama — was the country’s first black president.
Now, Hanson is being threatened at the only place where he’s been on equal footing with George Washington—on top of pedestals in the U.S. Capitol. Bronze statues of both first presidents are part of the National Statuary Hall Collection of significant Americans, but last year a proposal endorsed by Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley was floated to replace Hanson’s likeness with that of Underground Railroad heroine Harriet Tubman.
Even if the former president is ultimately evicted from the halls of Congress, this year’s scheduled unveiling of the John Hanson National Memorial in Frederick, Md., next to the site of his former residence, will keep him from fading into obscurity. He may not be totally forgotten. But it’s unlikely that Hanson will be appearing on commemorative U.S coinage anytime soon.
Christopher Klein is a writer living in Andover, Mass., and author of “Discovering the Boston Harbor Islands” (Union Park Press).
Although Hanson held the nation’s highest office nearly a decade before Washington, don’t expect to find his image alongside old George’s familiar visage in department store circulars and used car lots as they roll out their Presidents’ Day specials today. The man some historians argue was truly the country’s first president was long ago swept into the dustbin of history.
Washington has been the subject of countless tomes; Hanson has barely inspired footnotes.
However, both men led remarkably parallel lives — on opposite sides of the Potomac River. Hanson was born into a prominent family in Port Tobacco, Md., and spent much of his life on a plantation less than 20 miles away from Washington’s beloved Virginia estate, Mount Vernon. Both men were prosperous merchants, slave owners and devout patriots.
Hanson’s political career began in 1750, when he was appointed sheriff of Charles County, Md., and in 1757 he was elected to the Maryland General Assembly. America’s forgotten first president was one of Maryland’s leading opponents of the Stamp Act and other onerous measures passed by the British Parliament. When war broke out, Hanson spearheaded the recruitment of troops and procurement of arms in Frederick County, his new home.
When Hanson was elected as a Continental Congress delegate in 1779, Maryland was the lone holdout in ratifying the Articles of Confederation, the proposed national constitution that required unanimous consent by all 13 states. Maryland refused to join until other states ceded their individual claims to lands west of the Appalachian Mountains to the central government, and Hanson played an important role in getting them to agree. On March 1, 1781, Hanson and fellow Maryland delegate Daniel Carroll affixed their signatures to the Articles of Confederation, which created a new national governing body, the “United States in Congress Assembled,” and provided for the annual election of one of its members as president.
When the unicameral Congress met for the initial time on Nov. 5, 1781, its first official act was to unanimously elect Hanson its president. With his health failing and his heart heavy after the loss of two children, Jane and Samuel, just months before, Hanson would rather have been free to return home, but he accepted the position out of his sense of public duty.
The new president had little executive power and more closely resembled a presiding officer, but Hanson clearly viewed his duties as more than merely ceremonial. “The load of business which I have very unwillingly and very imprudently taken on me I am afraid will be more than my constitution will be able to bear,” he wrote to his son-in-law, Dr. Philip Thomas, just eight days after his election. The president offered to resign — but was persuaded by his fellow delegates to remain on the job.
Hanson’s declining health made it increasingly difficult for him to keep up with the job’s requirements, which included presiding over legislative sessions, receiving foreign ministers, writing correspondence to state governors, and signing all laws, treaties and official papers. In January 1782, Congress agreed to transfer primary responsibility for writing letters to the states from Hanson to the secretary of the Congress, Charles Thomson, “in order that the President may be relieved from the business with which he is unnecessarily encumbered.” When Hanson took seriously ill in the spring of 1782, a special measure allowed his old colleague Carroll to temporarily preside over the Congress, although he lacked the authority to sign any official documents.
Despite these obstacles, the Congress under Hanson’s one-year tenure accomplished much in the critical months after the victory at Yorktown. America’s nascent government chartered a national bank, signed treaties with Holland and Sweden, launched the Post Office, created the Great Seal of the United States, and designated the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving. With his presidential term complete in November 1782, Hanson retired from Congress, and he passed away little more than a year later on Nov. 22, 1783, at Oxon Hill Manor in Prince George’s County, Md.
The Articles of Confederation proved to be a bug-filled operating system for America, too weak to govern the country and lacking executive power, but it set the stage for the vastly improved Constitution Version 2.0 and the presidency of George Washington. Like a bad childhood memory, the Articles of Confederation era has been mostly purged from America’s collective history, along with Hanson and the seven men who succeeded him as “President of the United States in Congress Assembled.”
So complete has been our collective forgetting that Hanson’s precise burial place is unknown; indeed, he remains something of a historical enigma, with his birthdate listed variously as 1715 and 1721. His face is so unrecognizable that he’s been confused with a black senator in the African nation of Liberia who shared the same name, which has fueled Internet speculation that Hanson — not Barack Obama — was the country’s first black president.
Now, Hanson is being threatened at the only place where he’s been on equal footing with George Washington—on top of pedestals in the U.S. Capitol. Bronze statues of both first presidents are part of the National Statuary Hall Collection of significant Americans, but last year a proposal endorsed by Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley was floated to replace Hanson’s likeness with that of Underground Railroad heroine Harriet Tubman.
Even if the former president is ultimately evicted from the halls of Congress, this year’s scheduled unveiling of the John Hanson National Memorial in Frederick, Md., next to the site of his former residence, will keep him from fading into obscurity. He may not be totally forgotten. But it’s unlikely that Hanson will be appearing on commemorative U.S coinage anytime soon.
Christopher Klein is a writer living in Andover, Mass., and author of “Discovering the Boston Harbor Islands” (Union Park Press).
As president, John Hanson had little executive power.
