George Washington’s Precedents

Abstract

As the founding president of a new republic, which he called an “experiment” in government, George Washington was keenly aware of the importance of “precedents” in shaping “institutions.” Following the recommendation of Herbert Simon (1947) who believed that administrative theory should be based on identifying decision premises, this study identifies premises, stated as propositions, which guided Washington in what he called his “public administration” for a new nation. These propositions comprise a coherent theoretical framework, based on Enlightenment thinking and values, for studying and practicing public administration.

Keywords

institutions public service motivation public administration theory American history George Washington

Monday, September 9, 1787, was an extraordinary day in the history of American public administration. On that date, members of the Constitutional Convention signed the proposed Constitution and sent it to the states for consideration. In their deliberations, they had rejected a plural executive in favor of a lone president. In doing so, they placed the burden of shaping the new executive branch of government squarely on the shoulders of one man, George Washington.

The new document expressed the ideas of Enlightenment philosophers, especially John Locke and Francis Hutcheson. It recognized the “natural” right of a people to form a contract establishing a government, it provided for the separation of powers, and it created a system for the election of a congress and president—but it gave little to no guidance as to how to form a “public administration” to make the government work. Since the members of the convention believed that Washington would be the first president under the new Constitution, they left many of the president’s functions undefined.

Historian Willard Sterne Randall (1997) observed, “No doubt no other president would have been entrusted with such latitude” (p. 435). Members of the convention felt that Washington was unlikely to betray their confidence. He had quelled a possible revolt of his officers against the Continental Congress in 1782, and in 1783 he had resigned his commission by presenting Congress with his sword to symbolize the surrender of his authority. He then returned to his home as a private citizen.

The convention had followed John Adams’ (1787) advice on lessening the likelihood of legislative usurpations of liberty by granting authority to the president to veto legislation and making the legislature bicameral (McCullough, 2001; National Humanities Center, 2011). The executive was now the center of concern. Washington recognized there was much trepidation about the authority of the president under the new Constitution. John Quincy Adams (1788) worried about “the indefinite powers granted to the administrators” in the new Constitution. Thomas Jefferson (1787) feared the creation of a president for life, and George Mason, who favored a plural executive and opposed the Constitution, feared the establishment of an elective monarchy (Madison, 1787).

Washington knew the fates of the Roman republic and the Athenian democracy. There was no historical example of a successful republic and no model of a successful presidency. There was also no theoretical framework to guide the administration of a democratic republic. Although he presided over the Constitutional Convention, he did not speak about the framing of the executive branch when that topic came up for deliberation.

In his biography of George Washington, Woodrow Wilson (1896/1969) observed that Washington was keenly aware that his actions would become precedents for those who followed. In a letter to James Madison, Washington proclaimed, “As the first of everything, in our situation, will serve to establish a Precedent, it is devoutly wished on my part, that these precedents may be fixed on true principles.”¹ A few days later he told Madison,

Many things which appear of little importance in themselves and at the beginning, may have great and durable consequences from their having been established at the commencement of a new general Government. It will be much easier to commence the administration, upon a well adjusted system built on tenable grounds, than to correct errors or alter inconveniences after they shall have been confirmed by habit.²

Several months later, he commented to English historian Catharine Macaulay Graham, “There is scarcely any part of my conduct which may not hereafter be drawn into precedent.”³

Washington customarily used the term “public administration” to describe his actions as president as well as the actions of subordinates within the executive branch. For example, Washington told Congress,

It is desirable on all occasions, to unite with a steady and firm adherence to constitutional and necessary Acts of Government, the fullest evidence of a disposition, as far as may be practicable, to consult the wishes of every part of the Community, and to lay the foundations of the public administration in the affection of the people.⁴

In his farewell address, Washington cautioned that excessive partisanship “serves always to distract the Public Councils and enfeeble the Public administration.”⁵ In Washington’s time, as now, the word “administration” referred to managing something on the behalf of someone else. Administering on behalf of the “public” referred to serving fellow citizens.

In his precedents, Washington sought to establish a coherent framework for practicing public administration in ways that could enhance the success of a newly established republic. It is therefore important to identify those precedents in order to better understand the decision premises that underlaid what he was thinking. In doing this, it is appropriate to use a historical approach.

Method

“History serves as one of the core foundations for social investigative study” (Newbold, 2010, p. xiv). Herbert Simon (1947) believed that administrative theory should be based on identifying decision premises. Since our present government is a product of past human actions (Raadschelders, 2010, p. 246), we get a better understanding of our government by studying the reasoning, particularly the decision premises, of its first administrators. Washington invited others to discern his thoughts from his activities. He wrote, “With me, it has always been a maxim, rather to let my designs appear from my works than by my expressions.”⁶ He recorded his “works” in approximately 135,000 letters, diaries, journals, account books, military records, letterbooks, and reports (Grizzard, 2002). These original documents give historians the opportunity to study Washington’s “designs.”

Professional historians generally agree that

historical knowledge is acquired by the operation of reason and rationality as applied to the historical sources. Through this empirical (i.e., source-based) and analytical (i.e., inferential) process we extract what we think is most likely to be the past’s true meaning. (Munslow, 2002, p. 18)

Using this process, we analyzed documents from archives maintained by the Library of Congress (George Washington Papers 1741-1799) and by the University of Virginia (The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscripts 1745-1799). With Washington’s words as our data, we identified themes that described some of his views on public administration. We found that some of his precedents are well remembered; others are lesser known.

In an article commemorating the American bicentennial, Lynton Caldwell (1976) put forth 10 propositions that summarized some fundamental beliefs about public administration during the founding of the American republic. Caldwell relied on the writings of Thomas Jefferson to develop the majority of his propositions and none of them explicitly addressed organizing the executive. Following Caldwell’s example, we developed propositions about public administration based on the writings of Washington. As commander in chief of the Continental Army, president of the Constitutional Convention, and first president of the United States, Washington created precedents that were intended to guide future public administrators. He was a logical thinker who used reason to solve problems. His writings indicate he fashioned his precedents in the belief that institutionalizing certain actions would enhance the success of the new republic.

Washington used what Donald Schön would later call “reflective practice.” A reflective practitioner “reflects on the phenomenon before him, and on the prior understandings which have been implicit in his behavior. He carries out an experiment that serves to generate both a new understanding of the phenomenon and a change in the situation” (Schön, 1983, p. 68). In addition to commanding armies and heading the executive branch, Washington’s experiences ranged from surveying the frontier to operating a large plantation to being a legislator for 15 years. In each position, he sought not to write theory but to fashion solutions to pressing problems. He left it to scholars to identify his “designs,” the reasoned framework of premises from which he operated.

A Self-Conscious Institution Builder

Modern scholars often emphasize the importance of institutions. March and Olsen (1984) wrote, “Political democracy depends not only on economic and social contributions but also on the design of political institutions” (p. 738). Designing political institutions was a primary concern in the 18th century; it remains a question of great importance in the 21st century. Nations still seek to establish themselves as democracies; some fail in doing so. Contemporary events remind us that nations often fail to establish and perpetuate integrated patterns of behavior that promote democratic values and practices. Selznick (1996) observed that institution building depends largely on the capacity of leaders “to choose the key values and to create a social structure that embodies them.” Earlier, Meyer and Rowan (1977) concluded that institution building is more likely to be successful when organizations “incorporate institutionalized myths” (p. 361), stories that are told which lend legitimacy to decisions and actions.

Washington used the word institution as we use it today—lasting patterns of behavior that successors view normatively as proper behaviors to be perpetuated. He explained,

Remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of Governments, as of other human institutions, . . . with me, a predominant motive has been to endeavor to gain time to our country to settle and mature its recent institutions.⁷

Washington’s words and actions reveal that his precedents were based on a solid understanding of past practices. Wilson (1896/1969) noted that one of Washington’s first actions was to obtain “all the papers” of the departments of the Articles of Confederation government and that he “mastered their contents after his own thorough fashion” (p. 277). In letters to former Continental Army colleagues, Washington wrote, “Precedents are dangerous things,”⁸ and, “The first transactions of a nation, like those of an individual upon his first entrance into life, make the deepest impression, and are to form the leading traits in its character.”⁹

Washington intuitively validated his thinking through experimentation. His friend, Colonel David Humphries, observed that Washington made “copious Notes in writing relative to his own experiments” (Zagarri, 1991, p. 37). Washington stated in his first inaugural address that he saw the creation of the new government to be an experiment. Furthermore, in a letter to a French diplomat, he wrote, “This event will enable us to make a fair experiment of a Constitution which was framed solely with a view to promote the happiness of a people.”¹⁰ Washington was deeply involved in the details of the “experiment” (Rhodehamel, 1998, pp. 115-145; White, 1948, pp. 97-115). As commander of the Continental Army, Washington was known to pose extensive and detailed questions to multiple advisers. He continued that practice as president.

Any experiment in governance needs criteria to judge its success. Washington’s fundamental criterion was legitimacy—manifest by the successful perpetuation of a new republic established in the form of a representative democracy. To be successful, to gain the support of the public, the new government had to perform well. For Washington, a man who had studied the writings of Enlightenment philosophers, attaining legitimacy required the application of reason to solve pressing problems.

Man of the Enlightenment

Historians place Washington as a man of the Enlightenment in his thinking and actions (Smith, 1993). He was not alone among colonial Americans. The Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution both reflect the thinking of Enlightenment philosophers. They embody John Locke’s proposed natural rights, majority rule, and checks and balances. The Declaration, especially, reflects Francis Hutcheson’s (1753) arguments about the conditions which justify the overthrow of established authority by a colonial people. Hutcheson, who was arguably the most influential moral thinker in the American colonies (Fiering, 1981, p. 199; Norton, 1976), apparently had a profound effect on a young George Washington. Hutcheson, mentor of Adam Smith, argued the importance of self interest as a motivator and of the concept of utility, particularly “the greatest good for the greatest number,” as a decision criterion. Hutcheson’s most famous book on moral reasoning became available in America when Washington was a teenager. Hutcheson, a clergyman and a professor of philosophy in Scotland, provided a framework for action grounded in benevolent service to others, a divinely grounded duty. He wrote, “In virtuous action alone we can find the highest happiness” (Norton, 1976, p. 49).

Like John Rawls (1971) in our own time, Hutcheson sought to demonstrate that reason could be used to ascertain what constitutes appropriate behavior. Like contemporary best-selling author and preacher Rick Warren (1997), Hutcheson reasoned that it is the intent of a benevolent creator for each individual to live a meaningful life, guided by a sense of purpose. Hutcheson inspired those under the control of colonial masters to overthrow that authority and to create their own governments to secure their liberties. Washington did not merely accept these concepts intellectually; he actively strove to embody them. Washington also later sought to encourage Enlightenment scholarship by staffing a national university in America with “some of the most celebrated characters in Scotland.”¹¹

But the Enlightenment philosophers were not administrators; they had not formed a body of theory to guide the creation of a newly formed republic’s executive branch. That task was left to Washington. His was a practical mind; his objective was not to describe theory but to shape institutions and thereby influence subsequent events. Leonard White (1948, p. 102) noted that Washington emphasized the importance of forethought. In thinking about the formation of the new government, Washington reasoned that if particular behaviors were institutionalized, the prospects for the survival and success of the new form of government would be greater. In the following sections, we describe some of Washington’s precedents—behaviors which Washington sought to institutionalize. Behind these precedents was a coherent set of “designs,” a theoretical framework for making a newly established democratic republic operational. We begin each section by stating propositions, the underlying decision premises that apparently guided Washington in establishing each set of precedents.

Propositions

Rule of Law

Proposition: Public administrators should exemplify acceptance of and adherence to the rule of law as expressed in the Constitution and statutes.

John Locke (1690, sec. 202) famously wrote, “Wherever law ends, tyranny begins.” He, therefore, reasoned that the executive should be “directed by antecedent, standing, positive laws” (sec. 147). Locke also recognized that a body of law cannot anticipate all contingencies so there was a need to grant “discretion for the public good” to those who implement a law (sec. 160). Washington agreed with Locke. He described the new republic as “a government of Laws made and executed by the fair substitutes of the people alone” (quoted in Allen, 1988, p. 448).

Washington felt it was necessary to repeatedly affirm his commitment to the rule of law. He told the citizens of Boston, “The Constitution is the guide, which I never will abandon.”¹² He told his Attorney General,

For, as the Constitution of the United States, and the Laws made under it, must mark the line of my official conduct, I could not justify my taking a single step in any matter, which appeared to me to require their agency, without its being first obtained; and, so far as I have been able to form a judgment upon the objects held up to view in your letter, they cannot be effected without the operation of a Law.¹³

Washington also agreed with Locke on the need for discretion in the administration of public affairs. The lack of authority, accompanied by necessary discretion, in the government of the Articles of Confederation had motivated Washington to press for a Constitutional Convention. While commander of the army, he repeatedly endured the consequences of an ineffective government. He believed “the fear of giving sufficient powers to the Congress . . . is futile, without it, our independence fails.”¹⁴ And in a letter near the end of the Revolutionary War, he referred to “that want of energy in the Federal Constitution which I am complaining of, and which I wish to see given to it by a Convention of the People.”¹⁵

It does not seem an exaggeration to state that it was Washington’s exemplification of his commitment to the rule of law that earned the trust of his fellow delegates at the Constitutional Convention. They knew that he had insisted his officers accept the authority of their legislature and that he had surrendered his own authority to the Congress. From that trust came their willingness to grant him extraordinary discretion in shaping the executive branch of the new government.

Civilian Control of the Military

Proposition: Public administrators who serve in the military are especially obliged to accept and adhere to the rule of law as expressed through Constitutional and statutory provisions for civilian control of the military.

The U.S. Army’s Field Manual 1 (2005) teaches new soldiers the story of how General Washington implored his officers to accept the authority of Congress and respect the rule of law. That story has become a powerful part of the institutional foundations, the mythology, of America’s armed forces. Lesser known is the manner in which Washington used militia forces in the first major exercise of the new nation’s police powers: the Whiskey Rebellion.

A law passed in 1792 authorized the president to call upon state militias to enforce federal laws if a state’s authorities were unable to do so. Following the passage of an excise tax on the manufacturing of whiskey, farmers in Appalachia, especially western Pennsylvania, mounted armed resistance to the tax. In responding, Washington scrupulously followed legal procedures (Palmer, 1994). The governor of Pennsylvania stated matters were beyond his control and an associate justice of the Supreme Court issued a finding to that effect. Washington then assembled a militia force of upward of 15,000, which he called the Army of the Constitution. In the activated state militias, citizens had become federal law enforcement officers. Washington personally oversaw their training, and he insisted that none of them should be an “infractor” of the laws.¹⁶

Accountability

Proposition: Public administrators derive their authority from the people through the Constitution and are accountable to the people, especially as expressed through accountability to their elected representatives.

As commander of the army, Washington repeatedly experienced breakdowns in his supply chain. A poorly defined chain of command accompanied by a lack of accountability exacerbated his army’s troubles. Washington responded with efforts to clarify responsibilities and hold subordinates accountable for their actions. He made it clear that those who appointed subordinates were to be held accountable for the performance of their appointees.¹⁷ As a general and as President, he regularly reported his own actions to the Congress.

Washington advised his senior administrators that appointees be of “competent character, always on the spot with sufficient powers, and fully instructed.”¹⁸ Washington also emphasized that public officials should consider themselves as being accountable to posterity (Zagarri, 1991). In this respect, he believed that a government should provide free access of information to historians.¹⁹

Obligation of Efficiency

Proposition: Public administrators, as stewards to the people, are obliged to assure that the government is managed in ways that make it effective, efficient, and responsible.

Early in his presidency, Washington wrote, “I always believed that an unequivocally free and equal Representation of the People in the Legislature, together with an efficient and responsable [sic] Executive, were the great Pillars on which the preservation of American Freedom must depend.”²⁰ It is evident in many of his writings that when Washington mentioned efficiency, he was also thinking of effectiveness. Washington postulated that experimentation could help to improve effectiveness while also lessening unnecessary expenditures of resources.²¹

Washington believed that effectiveness and efficiency would have broad effects: “an efficient general Government to regulate our Commercial concerns, to give us a national respectability, and to connect the political views and interests of the several States.”²² His actions in quelling the Whiskey Rebellion revealed that he placed efficacy ahead of cost containment. Due to his uncertainty about the level of resistance, he assembled a 15 thousand-man army, which “according to all human calculation, would be prompt, and adequate in every view.”²³

Merit Selection

Proposition: Public administrators are more likely to serve the public well when they are selected for their positions according to their personal merit.

In the late 19th century, Progressive advocates of merit-based personnel reforms relied upon Washington’s precedents. A report of the U.S. Civil Service System (1899), for example, discussed the legacy of Washington in considerable detail. In addition, when Progressive reformer Dorman Eaton died, one of his eulogists wrote “the father of the civil service law” was following the example of the “Father of His Country” (Barker, 1900). Both the commission and the eulogist quoted a letter which Washington wrote to a general’s widow who had asked for a job for her son:

All that I require, is the name and such testimonials with respect to abilities, integrity and fitness as it may be in the power of the several applicants to produce: Beyond this, nothing with me is necessary, or will be of any avail to them in my decisions.²⁴

To Washington, having a capable staff, selected on merit, was a key to achieving “efficiency.” Washington even refused to recommend his own nephew to be attorney general in Virginia because he lacked the requisite experience. Historians have concluded that Washington involved himself in nearly every federal hiring, “right down to the lighthouse keeper in Portland, Maine” (Randall, 1997, p. 453). Washington’s commitment to merit selection began as early as 1758 when the officers in his Virginia regiment thanked him for his “invariable regard to merit” (Zagarri, 1991, p. 66).

As president, Washington retained some public servants who had been appointed under the Articles government. John Marshall (1838/2000, p. 340) remarked, “Uninfluenced by considerations of personal regard, the President could not be induced to change men whom he found in place, if worthy of being employed,” and if an incumbent matched an outside candidate on “merits and sufferings in service to the public” the incumbent was to be preferred. In short, Washington sought administrators who demonstrated capability and disinterested public service, supported the Constitution, and were geographically representative.

Public Service Motivation

Proposition: Public administrators are more likely to serve the public well when they are motivated by a sense of duty and benevolence toward fellow citizens, both present and future.

Washington possessed a concept of public service motivation that reflected the teachings of Francis Hutcheson. Hutcheson had argued that the highest realization of self interest is to experience the rewarding feelings that come from benevolence toward others. Washington frequently asserted that it was the “approbation” of his fellow citizens that provided the “highest possible reward” for his service to the nation.²⁵ He believed that humans can be motivated by both self interest (money) and public virtue (a desire to serve others).²⁶ In this belief, Washington was distancing himself from Hutcheson’s most famous pupil, Adam Smith. Smith had criticized his mentor for placing too much emphasis on the concept of benevolence. Even today, the field of public administration, with its emphasis on the importance of public service motivation, is distinctively different from the field of economics in which the assumptions of Adam Smith predominate. In essence, public service motivation is an aspiration to practice benevolence.

Washington asked the Congress to pay sufficient salaries to assure that people without wealth, but who possessed merit, could afford to become public servants.²⁷ In his important book of brief biographies about 19th-century reformers, Richard Stillman (1998) concluded that each had been motivated by a secular expression of a “calling,” a way to live meaningful lives of benevolent service. Like Washington, the reformers studied by Stillman were guided by a sense of public service that reflected the beliefs of Francis Hutcheson.

Representativeness—In Bureaucracy and in Contracting

Proposition: A government will be better accepted if its administrators reflect the origins of its people and if its spending is perceived to be fairly distributed.

David Humphrey quoted Washington as saying, “I know that merit only ought to be regarded, and I will endeavor faithfully & disinterestedly to have men of that description, employed & selected in as equal proportions as may be from the different parts of the continent” (Zagarri, 1991, p. 51). Washington feared that local prejudices and jealousies might cause the nation to splinter apart. Consequently, he took care to assure that both federal hiring practices and federal contracting practices were done in ways that would help to bind the disparate parts of the nation together. He proclaimed, “In my public Administration, I have heretofore endeavored invariably to shew that I gave no preference to one place over another” (Zagarri, 1991, p. 85).

When Congress established the U.S. Navy, Washington insisted the ships be built in multiple seaports up and down the Atlantic Coast (Crawford & Hughes, 2012). He selected six ports and appointed the ships’ captains as the project superintendents. The resulting ships were of higher quality than similarly sized ships in the navies of England and France. Today, there is more concern about representativeness in such matters as gender, race, and ethnicity than geography. Nevertheless, Washington’s precedents regarding representativeness remain relevant.

Enhance “Community”

Proposition: Prospects for successful governance are enhanced when public administrators exemplify a sense of identity with the broader community of which they are a part and encourage fellow citizens to do likewise.

In Washington’s time, people identified more with their localities and their states than with the newly formed nation. He worried that a failure to identify with the nation as a whole could lessen its effectiveness and even bring about its end. One of his last acts as commander of the army was to call upon “the People of the United States . . . to forget their local prejudices and policies . . . and in some instances, to sacrifice their individual advantages to the interest of the Community.”²⁸ Later, as president, Washington made it clear, in a letter to a “Hebrew Congregation” that the newly forming national community should fully include persons of non-Christian faiths:

For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.²⁹

Writers of contemporary public administration literature give well-deserved attention to the strengthening of local communities through such strategies as improving the performance of nonprofit organizations. However, in a nation in which considerable mistrust of the national government still exists, it is a mistake to underestimate the importance of also promoting a sense of shared national identity. Encouraging a sense of shared community among Americans to counter the centripetal, community enervating, tendencies of our time is a continuing challenge for public administrators. We need always to encourage unity from our diversity, nationally as well as locally. Or, as Washington put it,

The assimilation of the principles, opinions, and manners, of our countrymen by the common education of a portion of our youth from every quarter, well deserves attention. The more homogeneous our citizens can be made in these particulars, the greater will be our prospect of permanent union; and a primary object of such a national institution should be, the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? And what duty more pressing on its legislature, than to patronize a plan for communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country.³⁰

Education for Public Service

Proposition: Prospects for successful governance are enhanced when young people are well educated in the arts and sciences, especially in the “science of government,” and in a way that fosters a sense of shared citizenship and civic duty that offsets “local prejudices and habitual jealousies.”

Historian Richard Loss (1989) studied Washington’s thoughts on education relative to those of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton and concluded that Washington’s views were more fully developed and of potentially greater consequence. Washington emphasized the importance of socialization, not just the attainment of cognitive knowledge. He thought it “a matter of infinite Importance” to establish a national university where students from all parts of the country could associate with each other and form “friendships in Juvenile years” that would help “to free themselves in a proper degree from those local prejudices and habitual Jealousies.”³¹

Washington wanted the national university’s curriculum to mirror that of Scottish universities such as the University of Glasgow where Hutcheson, Hume, and Smith taught.³² They emphasized science, mathematics, history, languages, and philosophy. Washington believed that each of these was important in the education of citizens and particularly in the education of those who might serve in government. He wanted to locate the university in the nation’s capital because it would give future administrators the opportunity to learn from close observation of the Congress, the courts, and the executive departments. Aristotle had argued that democracy would fail due to the ignorance of the mass public. Washington intuitively argued that the prospects for a democratic republic would be enhanced if education was broadly promoted by governments (Loss, 1989, p. 479). The education of citizens should teach “the people themselves to know and to value their own rights; to discern and provide against invasions of them; to distinguish between oppression and the necessary exercise of lawful authority.”³³ Was he anticipating contemporary antigovernment extremists?

Objective Policy Analysis

Proposition: It is a duty of public administrators to conduct careful and objective analysis of problems, based on the best information that can be obtained, and to inform elected officials of the results.

Washington accepted Hutcheson’s concept of utility, which was continued by Adam Smith, as a basis for decision criteria. According to Washington, “The aggregate happiness of the society, which is best promoted by the practice of a virtuous policy, is, or ought to be, the end of all government.”³⁴ To achieve this end, he insisted “upon facts and deliberation” (White, 1948, p. 100). Thus, it is not surprising that Washington’s personal library included a copy of Locke’s essay on human understanding which emphasized the gathering of empirical knowledge and the application of reason. Washington explained, “My desire is to learn from dispassionate men, who have knowledge of the subject, and abilities to judge of it, the genuine opinion they entertain of each article of the instrument; and the result of it in the aggregate” (quoted in Allen, 1988, p. 609). He customarily called upon his cabinet members to provide detailed analyses of problems such as the adoption of a national bank and the creation of a navy. For example, Washington prepared a very detailed list of criticisms against financial policies and instructed Treasury Secretary Hamilton to respond item by item.³⁵

Washington also practiced incrementalism. After making a decision, he sought feedback and adjusted policies accordingly. He wrote that historical knowledge should be used in the framing of public policy so that “we may profit by the errors of older nations” (Zagarri, 1991, p. 84). He emphasized the importance of assessing public opinion “to lay the foundations of the public administration in the affection of the people.”³⁶ Washington consciously sought policy advice that would help him to be a creative centrist in his decision making. According to historian Paul Caresse (2003), “The American experiment might not have survived if not for his moderation” (p. 106).

Promote Economic Growth

Proposition: A republican government can and should promote economic growth and development.

Washington agreed with Hamilton that promoting manufacturing would benefit the nation and he agreed with Adam Smith that free trade among nations could reduce the incidence of war.³⁷ Washington also believed that

America, under an efficient government, will be the most favorable country of any in the world for persons of industry and frugality, possessed of a moderate capital. It is also believed, that it will not be less advantageous to the happiness of the lowest class of people, on account of the equal distribution of property, the great plenty of unoccupied lands, and the facility of procuring the means of subsistence.³⁸

Washington clearly believed that promoting economic opportunity and “the equal distribution of property” were in the national interest. One can only wonder what his opinion would be of our nation’s economic performance in recent decades.

Washington wrote,

From trade our citizens will not be restrained, and therefore it behoves us to place it in the most convenient channels, under proper regulation, freed as much as possible, from those vices which luxury, the consequence of wealth and power, naturally introduce.³⁹

He saw a need for legislation to facilitate a free flow of trade and for regulation to protect citizens from corrupt businesses; he also knew these reforms would need effective administrators. As a general, he had struggled repeatedly with private contractors who sometimes engaged in profiteering and were not always reliable. His solution was to find competent professionals (quartermasters) to get value for the public and its army.

Washington recognized that market failures can inhibit economic growth. For example, he wrote of Americans’ tendency to use up land until it was “sterile.” As a remedy, he called for public spending on an “agricultural establishment” to study, educate, and promote wise use of the soil rather than have farmers abandon it and move westward.⁴⁰ He endorsed the use of what we today call R&D in the belief that “a flourishing state of the arts and sciences contributes to national prosperity and reputation.”⁴¹

Public Private Partnering

Proposition: Situations arise in which it is desirable for a government to partner with private business to accomplish public purposes. It is the responsibility of public administrators to assure that such partnering is done in a manner that best serves and safeguards the public interest.

Washington was a strategic thinker who worried that the growing settlements west of the Appalachians might create a separate nation that could align itself with Britain, France, or Spain. To avert this, he wanted to create effective transportation corridors to move agricultural products eastward and manufactured products westward. While still a private citizen, Washington fashioned a public–private partnership to enable barge transportation up and down the Potomac River. The partnership, called the Potomac Company, included the states of Virginia and Maryland as well as private investors. The dividends from the states’ shares were to go directly to their treasuries. Unfortunately, the venture was based on a poor engineering design and it ultimately failed. During his administration, the federal government often relied on smaller public–private partnerships in areas like postal service and lighthouse construction and maintenance.

The Enhancement of Liberty

Proposition: Public administration should be accomplished in ways that enhance liberties.

From a contemporary perspective, it seems incongruous to look for liberty enhancing precedents from a man who lived most of his life as a slave owner. Nevertheless, Washington did seek to establish some liberty enhancing precedents. He wrote, “The establishment of Civil and Religious Liberty was the Motive which induced me to the Field.”⁴² He began his command of the army as a slave owner who was disturbed at the sight of free black soldiers carrying muskets. At the end of the war, he extended the honor of leading the final assault at Yorktown to a majority-Black regiment (Wiencek, 2003, p. 244). During his lifetime, Washington’s opinions about slavery changed markedly. As a man of the Enlightenment, he reasoned that persons of African ancestry were not inherently inferior, but reflected the circumstances into which they were born. After inviting a young, African-born slave woman to his headquarters in Boston for a conversation about her poetry, he concluded she was a “poetical genius.”⁴³ He deeply feared that slavery would split the nation apart.

Even though he was the only slave owning president to free all of his slaves (following his death), Washington’s greatest failure was his inability to convert Mount Vernon from an enterprise based upon slavery to one of sharecropping with freed citizens (Wiencek, 2003, p. 360). As early as 1783, he wrote to Lafayette that he would like to shift his operations to sharecropping “to encourage the emancipation of the black people of this Country.”⁴⁴ In 1794, referring to his slaves, he wrote of his desire “to liberate a certain species of property which I possess, very repugnantly to my own feelings.”⁴⁵ To convert Mount Vernon to a sharecropping system, Washington needed to obtain sufficient cash to purchase the slaves owned by his wife and her heirs. Washington needed the Potomac Company to succeed and thereby to increase the value of his Western land, which he could then sell to make the purchase. That never happened. We can only speculate as to what the historical effect might have been if Washington had demonstrated a successful precedent to eliminate slavery.

Finally, Washington’s decision to step down after his second presidential term reflected a deep desire to again relinquish public office. He believed that doing so would allay fears that the presidency might become a threat to personal liberties. In relinquishing the power of the presidency, as in earlier relinquishing the command of the army, Washington clearly sought to establish a precedent that would encourage a sense of liberty among fellow citizens (Peabody, 2001).

Conclusion

Lynton Caldwell (1944) believed that the perspectives of Hamilton, emphasizing a vibrant central government, and Jefferson, emphasizing vibrant local communities, were important elements of the intellectual heritage of American public administration. Washington accepted both perspectives. He sought to encourage a sense of national community but he respected federalism and saw a need for vibrant local communities as well. Maintaining and enhancing institutional integrity is a key responsibility of public managers (Terry, 2002). American public administrators today benefit from Washington’s success in establishing institutional integrity in a new republic.

In a sense, American public administrators today are a part of a longitudinal experiment, begun by Washington, testing the staying power of a representative democracy. Perpetuating the success of that ongoing experiment is an essential task of practitioners and scholars of public administration in the United States. Scholars have identified that modern academic disciplines such as sociology and economics have roots in Enlightenment philosophy, particularly Scottish roots. Thanks especially to George Washington, some essential elements in the practice of American public administration are also deeply rooted in the Scottish Enlightenment. The conceptual framework applied by Washington encompassed both norms of behavior and the doing of objective empirical analysis. Ours is a legacy of theory grounded in practice in an ongoing experiment. Washington fashioned his “designs,” his conceptual framework, almost a century before the emergence of modern academic disciplines. American public administration, therefore, is not derived primarily from other academic disciplines but is rooted directly and originally in the ideas of the Enlightenment.

Footnotes

Authors’ Note

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of Air Command and Staff College, Air University, the U.S. Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biographies

Scott A. Cook, PhD, is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force and an assistant professor of public administration and public policy at the Air Command and Staff College. His research interests include public-sector ethics, administrative history, and interagency collaboration.

William Earle Klay, PhD, is a professor and director of the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy of the Florida State University. He teaches a required doctoral course titled “The Intellectual History and Future of Public Administration” and some of his research looks at the future to identify problems that will challenge nonprofits and governments. His practitioner experience includes service as a captain in the U.S. Army, a systems specialist in a federal agency, a policy analyst for a state legislature, and a senior planner in a governor’s office of planning and budgeting.

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