the united states of america essay

The Moment of Truth

The reelection of Donald Trump would mark the end of George Washington’s vision for the presidency—and the United States.

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L ast November , during a symposium at Mount Vernon on democracy, John Kelly, the retired Marine Corps general who served as Donald Trump’s second chief of staff, spoke about George Washington’s historic accomplishments—his leadership and victory in the Revolutionary War, his vision of what an American president should be. And then Kelly offered a simple, three-word summary of Washington’s most important contribution to the nation he liberated.

“He went home,” Kelly said.

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The message was unambiguous. After leaving the White House, Kelly had described Trump as a “ person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about .” At Mount Vernon, he was making a clear point: People who are mad for power are a mortal threat to democracy. They may hold different titles—even President —but at heart they are tyrants, and all tyrants share the same trait: They never voluntarily cede power.

The American revolutionaries feared a powerful executive; they had, after all, just survived a war with a king. Yet when the Founders gathered in 1787 to draft the Constitution, they approved a powerful presidential office, because of their faith in one man: Washington.

Washington’s life is a story of heroic actions, but also of temptations avoided, of things he would not do. As a military officer, Washington refused to take part in a plot to overthrow Congress. As a victorious general, he refused to remain in command after the war had ended. As president, he refused to hold on to an office that he did not believe belonged to him. His insistence on the rule of law and his willingness to return power to its rightful owners—the people of the United States—are among his most enduring gifts to the nation and to democratic civilization.

Forty-four men have succeeded Washington so far. Some became titans; others finished their terms without distinction; a few ended their service to the nation in ignominy. But each of them knew that the day would come when it would be their duty and honor to return the presidency to the people.

All but one, that is.

Donald Trump and his authoritarian political movement represent an existential threat to every ideal that Washington cherished and encouraged in his new nation. They are the incarnation of Washington’s misgivings about populism, partisanship, and the “spirit of revenge” that Washington lamented as the animating force of party politics . Washington feared that, amid constant political warfare, some citizens would come to “seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual,” and that eventually a demagogue would exploit that sentiment.

Today, America stands at such a moment. A vengeful and emotionally unstable former president—a convicted felon, an insurrectionist, an admirer of foreign dictators, a racist and a misogynist—desires to return to office as an autocrat. Trump has left no doubt about his intentions; he practically shouts them every chance he gets. His deepest motives are to salve his ego, punish his enemies, and place himself above the law. Should he regain the Oval Office, he may well bring with him the experience and the means to complete the authoritarian project that he began in his first term.

Many Americans might think of George Washington as something like an avatar, too distant and majestic to be emulated. American culture has encouraged this distance by elevating him beyond earthly stature: A mural in the Capitol Rotunda depicts him literally as a deity in the clouds . In the capital city that bears Washington’s name, other presidents such as Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson are represented with human likenesses; Franklin D. Roosevelt even smiles at us from his wheelchair. Washington is represented by a towering, featureless obelisk. Such faceless abstractions make it easy to forget the difficult personal choices that he made, decisions that helped the United States avoid the many curses that have destroyed other democracies.

For decades, I taught Washington’s military campaigns and the lessons of his leadership to military officers when I was a professor at the U.S. Naval War College. And yet I, too, have always felt a distance from the man himself. In recent months, I revisited his life. I read his letters, consulted his biographers, and walked the halls at Mount Vernon. I found a man with weaknesses and shortcomings, but also a leader who possessed qualities that we once expected—and should again demand—from our presidents, especially as the United States confronts the choice between democracy and demagoguery.

The votes cast in November will be more consequential than those in any other American election in more than a century. As we judge the candidates, we should give thought to Washington’s example, and to three of Washington’s most important qualities and the traditions they represent: his refusal to use great power for his own ends, his extraordinary self-command, and, most of all, his understanding that national leaders in a democracy are only temporary stewards of a cause far greater than themselves.

Popular military leaders can become a menace to a democratic government if they have the loyalty of their soldiers, the love of the citizenry, and a government too weak to defend itself. Even before his victory in the Revolutionary War, Washington had all of these, and yet he chose to be a citizen rather than a Caesar.

It is difficult, in our modern era of ironic detachment and distrust, to grasp the intensity of the reverence that surrounded the General (as he would be called for the rest of his life) wherever he went. “Had he lived in the days of idolatry,” a Pennsylvania newspaper stated breathlessly during the war, Washington would have “been worshiped as a god.” He was more than a war hero. In 1780, when Washington passed through a town near Hartford, Connecticut, a French officer traveling with him recorded the scene:

We arrived there at night; the whole of the population had assembled from the suburbs, we were surrounded by a crowd of children carrying torches, reiterating the acclamations of the citizens; all were eager to approach the person of him whom they called their father, and pressed so closely around us that they hindered us from proceeding.

Washington was addressed—by Americans and visiting foreigners alike—as “Your Excellency” almost as often as he was by his rank. In Europe, a French admiral told him, he was celebrated as the “deliverer of America.” Alexander Hamilton, his aide-de-camp during the war, later described Washington as a man “to whom the world is offering incense.”

At the war’s outset, Washington had believed that defeat and death—whether on the battlefield or on a gibbet in London—were more likely than glory. He worried that his wife, Martha, might also face threats from British forces, and was so concerned about her reaction to his appointment as commander of the Continental Army that he waited days before writing to tell her about it. Patrick Henry described a chance encounter with Washington on the street in Philadelphia, shortly after the vote approving Washington’s command. Tears welled in the new general’s eyes. “Remember, Mr. Henry, what I now tell you,” Washington said. “From the day I enter upon the command of the American armies, I date my fall, and the ruin of my reputation.”

Instead, Washington’s reputation grew. Yet despite his surprising successes as a general and his rise as the symbol of American liberty, he never allowed the world’s incense to intoxicate him. Although he was a man of fierce ambition, his character was tempered by humility and bound up in his commitment to republican ideals: He led an American army only in the name of the American people and its elected representatives, and he never saw that army as his personal property. His soldiers were citizens, like him, and they were serving at his side in a common cause. “When we assumed the soldier,” he said to a group of New York representatives shortly before he took command, “we did not lay aside the citizen,” a sentiment that he repeated throughout the war.

In the 18th century, Washington’s deference to the people’s representatives and the rule of law would have seemed almost nonsensical to his European counterparts. Most military officers of the time served for life, after swearing allegiance to royal sovereigns whose authority was said to be ordained by God. Often drawn from the ranks of the nobility, they saw themselves as a superior caste and found little reason to assure civilians of their good intentions.

Washington, however, insisted that his men conduct themselves like soldiers who tomorrow would have to live with the people they were defending today. Despite continual supply shortages, he forbade his troops from plundering goods from the population—including from his Tory adversaries. Washington’s orders were prudent in the short term; his army needed both supplies and the goodwill of the people. But they also represented his careful investment in America’s future: Once the war was over, the new nation would depend on comity and grace among all citizens, regardless of what side they’d supported.

Most American presidents have had some sort of military experience. A few, like Washington, were genuine war heroes. All of them understood that military obedience to the rule of law and to responsible civilian authority is fundamental to the survival of democracy. Again, all of them but one.

During his term as president, Trump expected the military to be loyal—but only to him. He did not understand (or care) that members of the military swear an oath to the Constitution, and that they are servants of the nation, not of one man in one office. Trump viewed the military like a small child surveying a shelf of toy soldiers, referring to “my generals” and ordering up parades for his own enjoyment and to emphasize his personal control.

Trump was more than willing to turn the American military against its own people. In 2020, for instance, he wanted the military to attack protesters near the White House. “Beat the fuck out of them,” the president told the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley. “ Just shoot them .” Both Milley and Defense Secretary Mark Esper (a former military officer himself) talked their boss out of opening fire on American citizens.

From the November 2023 issue: How Mark Milley held the line

Senior officers during Trump’s term chose loyalty to the Constitution over loyalty to Donald Trump and remained true to Washington’s legacy. Such principles baffle Trump—all principles seem to baffle Trump, and he especially does not understand patriotism or self-sacrifice. He is, after all, the commander in chief who stood in Arlington National Cemetery, looked around at the honored dead in one of the country’s most sacred places, and said: “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”

A year ago, Trump suggested that Milley should be executed for actions he’d taken in uniform , including reassuring China of America’s political stability both before and after January 6, 2021. Esper has said that he thinks he and Milley, along with other senior defense officials and military officers, could be arrested and imprisoned if Trump returns to office. In a second term, Trump would appoint senior military leaders willing to subvert the military and the Constitution to serve his impulses. He already tried, in his first term, to bring such people to the White House, naming Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, for example, as his national security adviser. Flynn was fired after only 23 days for misleading White House officials about lying to the FBI and now travels the country promoting outlandish conspiracy theories. Trump has praised Flynn and promised to bring him back in a second term.

Trump is desperate to reclaim power, and he is making threats about what could happen if the American people refuse to give it to him. Washington, even before he became president, was offered an almost certain chance to take ultimate power, and he refused.

In 1783, Washington was camped with most of the Continental Army in Newburgh, New York. Congress, as usual, was behind on its financial obligations to American soldiers, and rumbles were spreading that it was time to take matters into military hands. Some men talked of deserting and leaving the nation defenseless. Others wanted to head to Philadelphia, disband Congress, and install Washington as something like a constitutional monarch.

Washington allowed the soldiers to meet so they could discuss their grievances. Then he unexpectedly showed up at the gathering and unloaded on his men. Calling the meeting itself “subversive of all order and discipline,” he reminded them of the years of loyalty and personal commitment to them. He blasted the dark motives of a letter circulating among the troops, written by an anonymous soldier, that suggested that the army should refuse to disarm if Congress failed to meet their needs. “Can he be,” Washington asked, “a friend to the army? Can he be a friend to this country?”

Then, in a moment of calculated theater meant to emphasize the toll that eight years of war had taken on him, he reached into his pocket for a pair of eyeglasses, ostensibly to read a communication from a member of Congress. “Gentlemen,” he said, “you must pardon me, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country.” Some of the men, already chastened by Washington’s reproaches, broke into tears. The Newburgh conspiracy, from that moment, was dead.

The presidential historian Stephen Knott told me that Washington could have walked into that same meeting and, with a nod of his head, gained a throne. “A lesser man might have been tempted to lead the army to Philadelphia and pave the way for despotism,” Knott said. Instead, Washington crushed the idea and shamed the conspirators.

Nine months later, Washington stood in the Maryland statehouse, where Congress was temporarily meeting, and returned control of the army to the elected representatives of the United States of America. He asked to be granted “the indulgence of retiring from the service of my country” and handed over the document containing his military commission. Washington, in the words of the historian Joseph Ellis, had completed “the greatest exit in American history.”

Decades ago, the scholar S. E. Finer asked a question that shadows every civilian government: “Instead of asking why the military engage in politics, we ought surely ask why they ever do otherwise.” The answer, at least in the United States, lies in the traditions instituted by Washington. Because of his choices during and after the Revolution, the United States has had the luxury of regarding military interference in its politics as almost unthinkable. If Trump returns to office with even a handful of praetorians around him, Americans may realize only too late what a rare privilege they have enjoyed.

Washington’s steadfast refusal to grasp for power was rooted not only in his civic beliefs, but also in a strength of character that Americans should demand in any president.

When he returned to Mount Vernon after the war, Washington thought he was returning permanently to the life of a Virginia planter. His mansion is small by modern standards, and his rooms have a kind of placidity to them, a sense of home. If you visited without knowing who once lived there, you could believe that you were wandering the property of any moderately successful older gentleman of the colonial era, at least until you noticed little details, such as the key to the Bastille —a gift from Washington’s friend the Marquis de Lafayette—hanging in the hall.

The estate is lovingly cared for today, but in 1783, after nearly a decade of Washington’s absence, it was a mess, physically and financially. Its fields and structures were in disrepair. Washington, who had refused a salary for his military service, faced significant debts. (When Lafayette invited him in 1784 to visit France and bask in its adulation, Washington declined because he couldn’t afford the trip.)

Barton Gellman: What happened to Michael Flynn?

But Washington’s stretched finances did not matter much to the people who showed up regularly at his door to seek a moment with the great man—and a night or two at his home. Customs of the time demanded that proper visitors, usually those with an introduction from someone known to the householder, were to be entertained and fed. Washington observed these courtesies as a matter of social duty, even when callers lacked the traditional referral. More than a year would pass after his return to Mount Vernon before he and Martha finally enjoyed a dinner alone.

Like many of the other Founders, Washington embraced the virtues of the ancient Stoic thinkers, including self-control, careful introspection, equanimity, and dispassionate judgment. He tried to overcome petty emotions, and to view life’s difficulties and triumphs as merely temporary conditions.

In the words of his vice president, John Adams, Washington had “great self-command”—the essential quality that distinguished him even among the giants of the Revolution and made him a model for future generations of American political and military leaders. Like anyone else, of course, he was beset by ordinary human failings. As his letters and the accounts of friends and family reveal, he was at times seized by vanity, anxiety, and private grievances. He was moody. His occasional bursts of temper could be fearsome. He never forgot, and rarely forgave, personal attacks.

But Washington was “keenly aware” of his own shortcomings, Lindsay Chervinsky, the director of the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon, told me, and this self-knowledge, bolstered by his sense of personal honor, governed nearly all of Washington’s actions. He rarely allowed his pride to congeal into arrogance, nor his insecurities to curdle into self-pity. He refused to carry on public feuds—or to tilt the power he held against those who had slighted him.

Washington’s embrace of Stoicism helped him to step outside himself and confront the snares of his own ego and appetites, and especially to resist many of the temptations of power. His favorite play, Cato , was about Cato the Younger , a noted Stoic thinker and Roman senator who opposed the rise of Julius Caesar. Washington studied the examples of the great Roman republicans, particularly the story of Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus , the Roman military leader who saved his nation on the battlefield and then returned to his farm. (Washington would later serve as the first president of the Society of the Cincinnati, an organization of Revolutionary War veterans.) As the president and CEO of Mount Vernon, Douglas Bradburn, told me during a visit to the estate, Washington genuinely regarded the Roman general as an example to be followed.

The Stoic insistence on merciless honesty, both with oneself and with others, is what allowed Washington to act with vigor but without venom, to make decisions without drama—another of the many grim differences between the character of the first president and that of the 45th. The Washington biographer Ron Chernow writes that “there was cunning in Washington’s nature but no low scheming. He never reneged on promises and was seldom duplicitous or underhanded. He respected the public” and “did not provoke people needlessly.” He desired recognition of his service, but hated boasting.

Americans have long prized these qualities in their best presidents. Trump has none of them.

Washington’s personal code had one severe omission. I had to take only a short walk from the mansion at Mount Vernon to see the reconstructed living quarters of some of the 300 enslaved people who worked his fields. Like other southern Founders, Washington did not let his commitment to freedom interfere with his ownership of other human beings. His views on slavery changed over time, especially after he commanded Black troops in battle, and he arranged in his will to free his slaves. But to the end of his life, Washington mostly left his thoughts on the institution out of public debates: His goal was to build a republic, not to destroy slavery. He did not right all the wrongs around him, nor all of his own.

But Washington did set the standard of patriotic character for his successors. Some failed this test, and long before Trump’s arrival, other presidents endured harsh criticism for their belligerence and imperious ego. Andrew Jackson, for example, was a coarse and rabid partisan who infuriated his opponents; the New York jurist James Kent in 1834 excoriated him as “a detestable, ignorant, reckless, vain and malignant tyrant,” the product of a foolish experiment in “American elective monarchy.”

Many presidents, however, have emulated Washington in various ways. We rightly venerate the wartime leadership of men such as Lincoln and FDR, but others also undertook great burdens and made hard decisions selflessly and without complaint.

When a 1980 mission to liberate American hostages held in Iran ended in flames and the death of eight Americans in the desert, President Jimmy Carter addressed the nation. “It was my decision,” he said, both to attempt a rescue and to cancel the operation when it became impossible to continue. “The responsibility is fully my own.” Almost 20 years earlier, John F. Kennedy had taken the heat for the disastrous effort to land an anti-Communist invasion at Cuba’s Bay of Pigs, when he could have shifted blame to his predecessor, Dwight Eisenhower, from whom he’d inherited the plan. The day after JFK was assassinated, Lyndon B. Johnson began his tenure as president not by affirming his new power, but by convening Kennedy’s Cabinet and affirming instead the slain president’s greatness. He asked them all to stay on. “I rely on you,” he said. “I need you.”

Gerald Ford ended up in the Oval Office due to the failures of Richard Nixon, unelected and with no popular mandate to govern. And yet, at a time of great political and economic stress, he led the nation steadily and honorably. He pardoned Nixon because he thought it was in the nation’s best interest to end America’s “long national nightmare,” despite knowing that he would likely pay a decisive price at the polls.

President Joe Biden displayed a common sentiment with these leaders when he declined to run for reelection in July. Biden, reportedly hurt that he was being pushed to step aside, nonetheless put defeating Trump above his own feelings and refused to exhibit any bitterness. “I revere this office,” he told the nation, “but I love my country more.”

None of these men was perfect. But they followed Washington’s example by embracing their duty and accepting consequences for their decisions. (Even Nixon chose to resign rather than mobilize his base against his impeachment, a decision that now seems noble compared with Trump’s entirely remorseless reaction to his two impeachments, his inability to accept his 2020 loss, and his warnings of chaos should he lose again.) They refused to present themselves as victims of circumstance. They reassured Americans that someone was in charge and willing to take responsibility.

Trump is unlike all of the men who came before him. Among his many other ignoble acts, he will be remembered for uttering a sentence, as thousands of Americans fell sick and died during a pandemic, that would have disgusted Washington and that no other American president has ever said, nor should ever say again: “I don’t take responsibility at all.”

One of the defining characteristics of Washington’s approach to the presidency was that he was always trying to leave it. He had been drawn back into public life reluctantly, attending and presiding over the 1787 Constitutional Convention only after a violent tax revolt in Massachusetts, known as Shays’s Rebellion, convinced him that the republic was still fragile and in need of a more capable system of government. Washington returned to Mount Vernon after the meeting in Philadelphia, but he already knew from discussions at the convention that he would be asked to stand for election to the new presidency as America’s only truly unifying figure. His 1789 victory in the Electoral College was unanimous.

Washington had no intention of remaining president for the rest of his life, even if some of his contemporaries had other ideas. “You are now a king under a different name,” Washington’s aide James McHenry happily wrote to him after that first election, but Washington was determined to serve one term at most and then go back to Mount Vernon. In the end, he would be persuaded to remain for a second term by Hamilton, Jefferson, and others who said that the new nation needed more time to solidify under his aegis. (“North and south,” Jefferson told him, “will hang together if they have you to hang on.”)

As he assumed the presidency, Washington was concerned that even a whiff of kingly presumption could sink America’s new institutions. Lindsay Chervinsky told me that Washington doubted the judgment and prudence of Vice President Adams not only because the vocal and temperamental Bostonian generally irritated him—Adams irritated many of his colleagues—but also because he had proposed bloated and pretentious titles for the chief executive, such as “His Highness, the President of the United States of America, and Protector of their Liberties.” Washington preferred the simpler title adopted by the House of Representatives: “President of the United States.”

The American people trusted Washington, but they didn’t trust an embryonic government created in a matter of months by a small group of men in Philadelphia. (When Washington took office, Rhode Island and North Carolina hadn’t even ratified the Constitution yet.) The first president sought to allay these suspicions by almost immediately undertaking a kind of reassurance tour, traveling throughout the states—the Virginian shrewdly chose to start in New England—to show Americans that the Constitution and the nation’s commander in chief were not threats to their liberties.

Donald Trump also traveled America once he was elected. After one of the most divisive presidential contests in modern American history, Trump embarked on a kind of victory tour through the states that had voted for him, and only those states. His campaign called it a “thank you” tour, but Trump’s speeches—praising his supporters, bashing his enemies—left no doubt about his intentions. “We are really the people who love this country,” he told a crowd in Mobile, Alabama . He was assuring his followers that although he now had to govern the entire nation, he was their president, an insidious theme that would lead directly to the tragic events of January 6.

In his first years in office, Washington could have shaped the new presidency to his liking. His fellow Founders left much in Article II of the Constitution vague; they disagreed among themselves about the powers that the executive branch should hold, and they were willing to let Washington fill in at least some of the blanks regarding the scope of presidential authority. This choice has bedeviled American governance, allowing successive chief executives to widen their own powers, especially in foreign policy. Recently, the Supreme Court further loosened the constraints of the office, holding in Trump v. United States that presidents have immunity for anything that could be construed as an “official act.” This decision, publicly celebrated by Trump, opens frightening opportunities for presidents to rule corruptly and with impunity.

Washington fought for the office rather than its occupant. Sharply cognizant that his every action could constitute a precedent, he tried through his conduct to imbue the presidency with the strength of his own character. He took pains not to favor his relatives and friends as he made political appointments, and he shunned gifts, fearing that they might be seen as bribes. He mostly succeeded: Those who came after him were constrained by his example, even if at times unwillingly, at least until the election of 2016.

Washington believed that the American people had the right to change their Constitution, but he had absolutely no tolerance for insurrectionists who would violently defy its authority. During his first term, Congress passed a new tax on distilled spirits, a law that sparked revolts among farmers in western Pennsylvania. What began as sporadic clashes grew into a more cohesive armed challenge to the authority of the United States government—the largest, as Ron Chernow noted, until the Civil War. In September 1794, Washington issued an official proclamation that this “Whiskey Rebellion” was an act of “treasonable opposition.” The issue, he declared, was “whether a small portion of the United States shall dictate to the whole Union.” He warned other Americans “not to abet, aid, or comfort the insurgents.”

In a show of force, Washington took personal command of a militia of more than 12,000 men and began a march to Carlisle, Pennsylvania—the only time a sitting president has ever led troops in the field. He had no wish to shed American blood, but he was ready to fight, and the rebellion dissipated quickly in the face of this military response. Later, in the first use of the pardon power, Washington spared two of the insurgents from the death penalty, but only after the legal system had run its course and they had been convicted of treason.

As the president’s second term neared its end, his advisers again implored him to remain in office, and again argued that the republic might not survive without him. Washington, his health fading and his disillusionment with politics growing, held firm this time. He was going back to Virginia. As with his retirement from military life, his voluntary relinquishment of power as head of state was an almost inconceivable act at the time.

In his farewell to the American people, the retiring president acknowledged that he had likely made errors in office, but hoped that his faults would “be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest.” In March 1797, the man who had sacrificed so much for his country that he had to borrow money to get to his first inauguration left Philadelphia as a private citizen. Less than three years later, he was dead.

In a 2020 book about the first president , the historian Peter Henriques wrote that Washington “proved that his truest allegiance was to the republic by voluntarily surrendering power. It was the first of many peaceful transfers of power in the unprecedented American experiment.” Less than a year after the book’s publication, however, Trump would subvert this centuries-long tradition by summoning a mob against the elected representatives of the United States, after refusing to accept the result of the vote.

Trump stood by as insurrectionists swarmed the House offices and even the Senate chamber itself on January 6, in an attempt to stop the certification of the election by Congress. Hours later, after one of the worst single days of casualties for law-enforcement officers since 9/11, Trump finally asked his supporters to go home. “I know your pain,” he said, his words only emphasizing the delusional beliefs of the rioters. “I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us.” He has since referred to the people convicted in American courts for their actions on January 6 as “patriots” and to those held in prison as “hostages.” He has promised to pardon them.

From the January/February 2022 issue: Trump’s next coup has already begun

Washington’s character and record ensured that almost any of his successors would seem smaller by comparison. But the difference between Washington and Trump is so immense as to be unmeasurable. No president in history, not even the worst moral weaklings among them, is further from Washington than Trump.

Washington prized patience and had, as Adams put it, “the gift of silence”; Trump is ruled by his impulses and afflicted with verbal incontinence. Washington was uncomplaining; Trump whines incessantly. Washington was financially and morally incorruptible; Trump is a grifter and a crude libertine who still owes money to a woman he was found liable for sexually assaulting. Washington was a general of preternatural bravery who grieved the sacrifices of his men; Trump thinks that fallen soldiers are “losers” and “suckers.”

Washington personally took up arms to stop a rebellion against the United States; Trump encouraged one.

Some Americans seem unable to accept how much peril they face should Trump return, perhaps because many of them have never lived in an autocracy. They may yet get their chance: The former president is campaigning on an authoritarian platform. He has claimed that “massive” electoral fraud—defined as the vote in any election he loses—“allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.” He refers to other American citizens as “vermin” and “human scum,” and to journalists as “enemies of the people.” He has described freedom of the press as “frankly disgusting.” He routinely attacks the American legal system, especially when it tries to hold him accountable for his actions. He has said that he will govern as a dictator—but only for a day.

Trump is the man the Founders feared might arise from a mire of populism and ignorance, a selfish demagogue who would stop at nothing to gain and keep power. Washington foresaw the threat to American democracy from someone like Trump: In his farewell address, he worried that “sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction” would manipulate the public’s emotions and their partisan loyalties “to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.”

Many Americans in 2016 ignored this warning, and Trump engaged in the greatest betrayal of Washington’s legacy in American history. If given the opportunity, he would betray that legacy again—and the damage to the republic may this time be irreparable.

This article appears in the November 2024 print edition with the headline “Washington’s Nightmare.” When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic .

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Constitution

By: History.com Editors

Updated: March 28, 2023 | Original: October 27, 2009

The Constitution of the United States established America’s national government and fundamental laws, and guaranteed certain basic rights for its citizens. 

It was signed on September 17, 1787, by delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Under America’s first governing document, the Articles of Confederation, the national government was weak and states operated like independent countries. At the 1787 convention, delegates devised a plan for a stronger federal government with three branches—executive, legislative and judicial—along with a system of checks and balances to ensure no single branch would have too much power. 

The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution

The Preamble outlines the Constitution's purpose and guiding principles. It reads:

The Bill of Rights were 10 amendments guaranteeing basic individual protections, such as freedom of speech and religion, that became part of the Constitution in 1791. To date, there are 27 constitutional amendments.

Articles of Confederation

America’s first constitution, the Articles of Confederation , was ratified in 1781, a time when the nation was a loose confederation of states, each operating like independent countries. The national government was comprised of a single legislature, the Congress of the Confederation; there was no president or judicial branch.

The Articles of Confederation gave Congress the power to govern foreign affairs, conduct war and regulate currency; however, in reality these powers were sharply limited because Congress had no authority to enforce its requests to the states for money or troops.

Did you know? George Washington was initially reluctant to attend the Constitutional Convention. Although he saw the need for a stronger national government, he was busy managing his estate at Mount Vernon, suffering from rheumatism and worried that the convention wouldn't be successful in achieving its goals.

Soon after America won its independence from Great Britain with its 1783 victory in the American Revolution , it became increasingly evident that the young republic needed a stronger central government in order to remain stable.

In 1786, Alexander Hamilton , a lawyer and politician from New York , called for a constitutional convention to discuss the matter. The Confederation Congress, which in February 1787 endorsed the idea, invited all 13 states to send delegates to a meeting in Philadelphia.

Forming a More Perfect Union

On May 25, 1787, the Constitutional Convention opened in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania State House, now known as Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence had been adopted 11 years earlier. There were 55 delegates in attendance, representing all 13 states except Rhode Island , which refused to send representatives because it did not want a powerful central government interfering in its economic business. George Washington , who’d become a national hero after leading the Continental Army to victory during the American Revolution, was selected as president of the convention by unanimous vote.

The delegates (who also became known as the “framers” of the Constitution) were a well-educated group that included merchants, farmers, bankers and lawyers. Many had served in the Continental Army, colonial legislatures or the Continental Congress (known as the Congress of the Confederation as of 1781). In terms of religious affiliation, most were Protestants. Eight delegates were signers of the Declaration of Independence, while six had signed the Articles of Confederation.

At age 81, Pennsylvania’s Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) was the oldest delegate, while the majority of the delegates were in their 30s and 40s. Political leaders not in attendance at the convention included Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) and John Adams (1735-1826), who were serving as U.S. ambassadors in Europe. John Jay (1745-1829), Samuel Adams (1722-1803) and John Hancock (1737-93) were also absent from the convention. Virginia’s Patrick Henry (1736-99) was chosen to be a delegate but refused to attend the convention because he didn’t want to give the central government more power, fearing it would endanger the rights of states and individuals.

Reporters and other visitors were barred from the convention sessions, which were held in secret to avoid outside pressures. However, Virginia’s James Madison (1751-1836) kept a detailed account of what transpired behind closed doors. (In 1837, Madison’s widow Dolley sold some of his papers, including his notes from the convention debates, to the federal government for $30,000.)

Debating the Constitution

The delegates had been tasked by Congress with amending the Articles of Confederation; however, they soon began deliberating proposals for an entirely new form of government. After intensive debate, which continued throughout the summer of 1787 and at times threatened to derail the proceedings, they developed a plan that established three branches of national government–executive, legislative and judicial. A system of checks and balances was put into place so that no single branch would have too much authority. The specific powers and responsibilities of each branch were also laid out.

Among the more contentious issues was the question of state representation in the national legislature. Delegates from larger states wanted population to determine how many representatives a state could send to Congress, while small states called for equal representation. The issue was resolved by the Connecticut Compromise, which proposed a bicameral legislature with proportional representation of the states in the lower house ( House of Representatives ) and equal representation in the upper house (Senate).

Another controversial topic was slavery. Although some northern states had already started to outlaw the practice, they went along with the southern states’ insistence that slavery was an issue for individual states to decide and should be kept out of the Constitution. Many northern delegates believed that without agreeing to this, the South wouldn’t join the Union. For the purposes of taxation and determining how many representatives a state could send to Congress, it was decided that enslaved people would be counted as three-fifths of a person. Additionally, it was agreed that Congress wouldn’t be allowed to prohibit the slave trade before 1808, and states were required to return fugitive enslaved people to their owners.

Ratifying the Constitution

By September 1787, the convention’s five-member Committee of Style (Hamilton, Madison, William Samuel Johnson of Connecticut, Gouverneur Morris of New York, Rufus King of Massachusetts ) had drafted the final text of the Constitution, which consisted of some 4,200 words. On September 17, George Washington was the first to sign the document. Of the 55 delegates, a total of 39 signed; some had already left Philadelphia, and three–George Mason (1725-92) and Edmund Randolph (1753-1813) of Virginia , and Elbridge Gerry (1744-1813) of Massachusetts–refused to approve the document. In order for the Constitution to become law, it then had to be ratified by nine of the 13 states.

James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, with assistance from John Jay, wrote a series of essays to persuade people to ratify the Constitution. The 85 essays, known collectively as “The Federalist” (or “The Federalist Papers”), detailed how the new government would work, and were published under the pseudonym Publius (Latin for “public”) in newspapers across the states starting in the fall of 1787. (People who supported the Constitution became known as Federalists, while those opposed it because they thought it gave too much power to the national government were called Anti-Federalists.)

7 Things You May Not Know About the Constitutional Convention

Seven surprising facts about the framers and the Constitutional Convention.

All Amendments to the US Constitution

Since the Constitution was ratified in 1789, hundreds of thousands of bills have been introduced attempting to amend the nation's founding document. But only 27 amendments to the U.S. Constitution have been ratified.

How the US Constitution Has Changed and Expanded Since 1787

Through amendments and legal rulings, the Constitution has transformed in some critical ways.

Beginning on December 7, 1787, five states– Delaware , Pennsylvania, New Jersey , Georgia and Connecticut–ratified the Constitution in quick succession. However, other states, especially Massachusetts, opposed the document, as it failed to reserve un-delegated powers to the states and lacked constitutional protection of basic political rights, such as freedom of speech, religion and the press. 

In February 1788, a compromise was reached under which Massachusetts and other states would agree to ratify the document with the assurance that amendments would be immediately proposed. The Constitution was thus narrowly ratified in Massachusetts, followed by Maryland and South Carolina . On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the document, and it was subsequently agreed that government under the U.S. Constitution would begin on March 4, 1789. George Washington was inaugurated as America’s first president on April 30, 1789. In June of that same year, Virginia ratified the Constitution, and New York followed in July. On February 2, 1790, the U.S. Supreme Court held its first session, marking the date when the government was fully operative.

Rhode Island, the last holdout of the original 13 states, finally ratified the Constitution on May 29, 1790.

The Bill of Rights

In 1789, Madison, then a member of the newly established U.S. House of Representatives , introduced 19 amendments to the Constitution. On September 25, 1789, Congress adopted 12 of the amendments and sent them to the states for ratification. Ten of these amendments, known collectively as the Bill of Rights , were ratified and became part of the Constitution on December 10, 1791. The Bill of Rights guarantees individuals certain basic protections as citizens, including freedom of speech, religion and the press; the right to bear and keep arms; the right to peaceably assemble; protection from unreasonable search and seizure; and the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury. For his contributions to the drafting of the Constitution, as well as its ratification, Madison became known as “Father of the Constitution.”

8 Things You Should Know About the Bill of Rights

The first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, became law on December 15, 1791.

Before Drafting the Bill of Rights, James Madison Argued the Constitution Was Fine Without It

The founding father worried that trying to spell out all of Americans' rights in the series of amendments could be inherently limiting.

To date, there have been thousands of proposed amendments to the Constitution. However, only 17 amendments have been ratified in addition to the Bill of Rights because the process isn’t easy–after a proposed amendment makes it through Congress, it must be ratified by three-fourths of the states. The most recent amendment to the Constitution, Article XXVII, which deals with congressional pay raises, was proposed in 1789 and ratified in 1992.

The Constitution Today

In the more than 200 years since the Constitution was created, America has stretched across an entire continent and its population and economy have expanded more than the document’s framers likely ever could have envisioned. Through all the changes, the Constitution has endured and adapted.

The framers knew it wasn’t a perfect document. However, as Benjamin Franklin said on the closing day of the convention in 1787: “I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such, because I think a central government is necessary for us… I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain may be able to make a better Constitution.” Today, the original Constitution is on display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Constitution Day is observed on September 17, to commemorate the date the document was signed.

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My Favorite Country: Exploring the United States of America

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