I’ve often cited the famous chocolate conveyor belt scene from the old “I Love Lucy” television program in explaining how to sift through the flurry of events which make up an American presidency.
Further, if we imagined a perfectly quaffed President Trump sitting at the Resolute Desk with only two baskets to his immediate left and right; the basket on his right (the most important as Commander-in-Chief) would be labeled: “Foreign Policy.” The basket to his left marked: “Domestic Policy.”
Given a situation like Lucy faced above, we could then simplify our understanding of the key events in any presidency by efficiently placing them into the appropriate of the two named baskets as they came toward a president down a fast moving track.
Though President Washington had masterfully kept an army in the field against the world’s greatest superpower for the better part of a decade, that did not cloud his judgement concerning what our relationship should be with our mother country (and still chief rival) headed into the nineteenth-century.
In what would be a wildly unpopular move at the time, President Washington dispatched US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Jay to negotiate a treaty with England that would buy the new nation what Washington understood it needed most militarily and economically: time.
Jay’s Treaty was overwhelmingly unpopular in the nation’s South (though we were soon placated by Thomas Pinckney’s Treaty with Spain which opened up trade on the Mississippi River) for the treaty's promise to pay debts to British merchants accumulated during the Revolution in exchange for British agreement to move troops out of forts on America’s western frontier. Jay’s Treaty not only reflected the already burgeoning sectional struggle in the new nation; but it also demonstrated the strong Jefferson-Francofile-Agrarian camp’s resistance to the Hamilton-Anglophile-Industrialist faction which defined the Federalist Years.
Time is the great decider, and President Washington’s (then unpopular) maneuver to court favor with our old colonial parent proved wise when we were later sufficiently mature enough to fend off the British during the War of 1812. Strong leaders understand foresight trumps easy, present-day expediencies.
Next Week: President Washington’s Domestic Policy Big Idea
Shane Morris is a retired soldier and teacher. Contact at sigm11@yahoo.com (Subject: NtC)
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