When George Washington was sworn in as the first President of United States in New York City in 1789, the American Revolution was complete in the sense that independence from Great Britain had been won. Furthermore, with ratification of the Constitution, a form of government was established that held the promise of allowing the nation to move forward on its own terms. But in a sense, the revolution was not yet over, for it soon became apparent that the generation of leaders to whom we refer as the “Founding Fathers” had very different ideas about how the Constitution should be interpreted. It is well to keep in mind that ratification of the Constitution had been a near thing; if 5% of the ratification votes had been changed in the key states of New York, Virginia and Massachusetts, they would not have ratified, and the country could easily have fallen apart.

Even though ratification had succeeded, there were still many who were skeptical about the vast powers with which the federal government had been endowed. As Patrick Henry had said in his arguments against ratification in the Virginia convention:

“This Constitution is said to have beautiful features, but when I come to examine these features, sir, they appear to me horribly frightful; among other deformities, it has an awful squinting—it squints towards monarchy; and does not this raise indignation in the breast of every true American? Your President may easily become king; your senate is so imperfectly constructed that your dearest rights may be sacrificed by what may be a small minority; and a very small minority may continue forever unchangeably this government, although horribly defective: where are your checks in this government? Your strong holds will be in the hands of your enemies.”

Patrick Henry's fellow Virginians, Jefferson and Madison, were among those who, although they had approved of the Constitution, were not prepared to grant the federal government the power to do anything it wished. The Federalists had been those who supported ratification of the Constitution; the Antifederalists were those who had fought against ratification. The Federalists continued as a political party, whose leaders included Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and although he tried to remain above politics, it is clear that Washington leaned strongly toward the Federalist camp. The Antifederalists, their first battle lost, formed the nucleus of the second political party to emerge, the Democratic Republicans, who call themselves Republicans. The party leaders were Jefferson, Madison and James Monroe.

Political feelings ran very high as the country adjusted to its new form of government. Many historians believe that the political divisions of the 1790s were the sharpest of any time in political history, with the exception of the period leading up to the Civil War. Complicating matters further, Europe erupted into the wars of the French Revolution and Empire, and the young United States had complex relationships with the two main antagonists, Great Britain and France. The attendant animosities and connections sharpened the already pointed political divisions in the United States, and foreign affairs dominated much of American political life for the first 25 years of existence of the nation under the Constitution.

Historian Page Smith has argued, quite credibly, that if the Republicans had not gained power in the election of 1800, the country might well have fallen into sharp civil discord, maybe even war. The divisions were sharp enough that the first murmurs of secession came not from the slave-holding states, but rather from the frustrated New England Federalists, who quickly came to resent what they referred to as the “Virginia Dynasty”—four of the first five presidents hailed from that state.

In any case, for better or worse, constitutional government got underway in 1789, and all Americans can be grateful for the fact that George Washington, his public service not yet over, was the first man to occupy the office of president. Under a lesser man, even after all that had been achieved, the grand experiment in republicanism might have failed.