NationStates Jolt Archive

http://www.marshallhall.org/hanson.html

This is odd.. i will not lie i was never told there was a president (or actually i come to find 6) Before Washington... so.. why is it that we are led to believe in the lies of history... such as washinton cut down his cfathers cherry tree? why not tell us the truth? or is it that they were bad presidents and we are ashamed of them.. i dunno.. honestly.. i know jack about any of them.. im just bored.

Because that was under the temporary Articles of Confederation, a failure of a system that was trashed in favor of the Constitution. Our first 'real' president was George Washington.

From your article,


Six other presidents were elected after him - Elias Boudinot (1783), Thomas Mifflin (1784), Richard Henry Lee (1785), Nathan Gorman (1786), Arthur St. Clair (1787), and Cyrus Griffin (1788) - all prior to Washington taking office. Why don't we ever hear about the first seven Presidents of the United States? It's quite simple - The Articles of Confederation didn't work well. The individual states had too much power and nothing could be agreed upon. A new doctrine needed to be written - something we know as the Constitution.


Hardly the lies of history.

Technicalities suck then....

Those people were Presidents of Congress, not Presidents of the United States. They were more like Speakers of the House, just figureheads for the legislature, and were not executive officers.

http://www.marshallhall.org/hanson.html

i will not lie i was never told there was a president (or actually i come to find 6) Before Washington... so.. why is it that we are led to believe in the lies of history...

Maybe you need to pay more attention in history class. I certainly remember that being in the text books.

Technicalities suck then....

Yup. "The Devil is in the details." :D

Try looking at this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_Continental_Congress

He wasn't President as we know it, because the country as we know it didn't exist yet.

Citing thismade sense at the start of the thread, but I just want to go to sleep now. I hope you find it interesting.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/041210.html

Because that was under the temporary Articles of Confederation, a failure of a system that was trashed in favor of the Constitution. Our first 'real' president was George Washington.

the articles weren't, strictly speaking, a failure. they worked. just not in quite the way that some people wanted. that's why we had federalists and anti-federalists during the debate over the constitution.

the articles weren't, strictly speaking, a failure. they worked. just not in quite the way that some people wanted. that's why we had federalists and anti-federalists during the debate over the constitution.

True, but they didn't work well enough to survive very long.

the articles weren't, strictly speaking, a failure. they worked. just not in quite the way that some people wanted. that's why we had federalists and anti-federalists during the debate over the constitution.
They were a failure and showed that no taxes means no Govt can function. So they failed.

He was president under a different constitution, the Articles of Confederation. That created an extremely weak central government, and allowed states to have their own currency, army, and territorial claims. Hanson was just as ineffective as that constitution was, and it lasted only about ten years. That's why the history books prefer to make only passing references about it.

Hanson was just as ineffective as that constitution was, and it lasted only about ten years. That's why the history books prefer to make only passing references about it.

or perhaps it is because american history books are largely written by partisans for the second system

or perhaps it is because american history books are largely written by partisans for the second system
That's what I said. And who isn't? The first system failed horribly.

They were a failure and showed that no taxes means no Govt can function. So they failed.

except that it wasn't meant to be a strong central state. it was a confederation of largely independent states, with a few rules on conduct between them. independent states often enter into various types of confederations. even looser confederations than that described in the articles, or ones with even less enforcement power. that doesn't mean those confederations are necessarily failures. just failures at subsuming the independent states into one new state. but as that wasn't the purpose, they can't have failed at it.

The first person who could make a convincing claim to the title President of the United States would be John Hancock, who presided over the signing of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress; this was the first body that used the title "United States of America". Whether anyone would accept such a claim now is unknown to me; I do know that Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and George Washington accepted it then.

except that it wasn't meant to be a strong central state. it was a confederation of largely independent states, with a few rules on conduct between them. independent states often enter into various types of confederations. even looser confederations than that described in the articles, or ones with even less enforcement power. that doesn't mean those confederations are necessarily failures. just failures at subsuming the independent states into one new state. but as that wasn't the purpose, they can't have failed at it.

to expand on this, the united states constitution has failed to provide us with dynastic god-kings who claim descent from ra. thus it is an immense failure.

to expand on this, the united states constitution has failed to provide us with dynastic god-kings who claim descent from ra. thus it is an immense failure.
Ya know what? You're right.