President Hanson

THE OVERLOOK

By Tom Clavin

          With Independence Day being celebrated this week, it is as good a time as any to see if we need to set the record straight about an important part of U.S. history: Was George Washington the nation’s first president or was it John Hanson? The man from Maryland was elected eight years before Washington.

          Hanson was born in April 1721 in Charles County, into a wealthy and politically prominent family. Little is known about his early life. As a young man, he followed his father's path as a planter, which included owning slaves. Hanson’s career in public service began in 1750, when he was appointed sheriff of Charles County. Seven years later, he was elected to represent the county in the lower house of the Maryland General Assembly, where he served for 12 years. Hanson was a leading opponent of the 1765 Stamp Act, chairing the committee that drafted the instructions for Maryland's delegates to the Stamp Act Congress. In 1769, in protest of the Townshend Acts, Hanson was one of the signers of a resolution that boycotted British imports until the acts were repealed.

          That same year he took a bit of a detour, apparently to better pursue his business interests. He resigned from the General Assembly, sold his land in Charles County, and moved to Frederick County in western Maryland. There he held a variety of offices, including deputy surveyor, sheriff, and county treasurer. But when relations between Great Britain and the colonies worsened in 1774, Hanson became one of Frederick County's leading patriots. In 1775, he was a delegate to the Maryland Convention, and with the other delegates he signed the Association of Freemen, which expressed hope for reconciliation with Great Britain but also called for military resistance to the enforcement of the Coercive Acts.

With hostilities underway, Hanson became responsible for recruiting and arming soldiers. He proved to be an excellent organizer, and Frederick County sent the first “southern” troops to join George Washington’s Continental Army. Because funds were scarce, Hanson frequently paid soldiers with his own money. In June 1776, Hanson chaired the Frederick County meeting that urged provincial leaders in Annapolis to instruct Maryland's delegates in the Continental Congress to declare independence from Great Britain. While Congress worked on the Declaration of Independence, Hanson was busy in Frederick County making gunlocks, storing powder, guarding prisoners, raising money and troops, dealing with Tories, and doing myriad other tasks to support the patriot cause.

During the American Revolution he held various positions, and in late 1779 he was named a delegate to the Second Continental Congress. This became a tad awkward because the following year Maryland was holding up the ratification of the Articles of Confederation. The state, which did not have any claims on western land, refused to ratify the Articles until the other states had ceded their western land claims. When the other states finally did so, the Maryland legislature decided in January 1781 to ratify the Articles. When Congress received notice of this, Hanson signed the Articles of Confederation on behalf of Maryland on March 1, 1781. With Maryland's endorsement, the Articles officially went into effect.

Now, about that president of the U.S. part: On November 5, 1781, Congress elected Hanson as its president. Under the Articles of Confederation, both legislative and executive government were vested in the Congress (as it was and still is in Britain). While the presidency of Congress was a mostly ceremonial position, the office did require Hanson to serve as neutral discussion moderator, handle official correspondence, and sign documents. He was, essentially, the new nation’s chief executive.

But Hanson found the work tedious and considered resigning after just one week, citing his poor health and family responsibilities. Colleagues urged him to remain because Congress at that moment lacked a quorum to choose a successor. Out of a sense of duty, Hanson remained in office, although his term as a delegate to Congress was nearly expired. The Maryland Assembly re-elected him as a delegate on November 28, 1781, and so Hanson continued to serve as president. The Articles of Confederation stipulated that presidents of Congress serve one-year terms, and Hanson became the first to do so.

So, being in such a top leadership position, John Hanson was really the first president of the U.S., right? Okay, okay, not so fast.

Contrary to the claims of some of his later advocates, John Hanson was not actually the first president to serve under the Articles nor the first to be elected under the Articles. When the Articles of Confederation went into effect in March 1781, Congress did not bother to elect a new president; instead, Samuel Huntington continued serving a term that had already exceeded a year. Then on July 9, Samuel Johnston became the first man to be elected as president of Congress after the ratification of the Articles. He declined the office, however, to make himself available to run for governor of North Carolina. After Johnston turned down the office, Thomas McKean was elected. He served just a few months, resigning in October 1781 after hearing news of the British surrender at Yorktown. Congress asked him to remain in office until November, when a new session of Congress was scheduled to begin. It was in that session that Hanson began to serve his one-year term. A highlight of Hanson's term was when General Washington presented Lord Cornwallis’s sword to Congress.

The idea that Hanson was the forgotten first president of the U.S. was promoted in a 1932 biography by journalist Seymour Smith, who asserted that the American Revolution had two primary leaders: George Washington on the battlefield and John Hanson in politics. Smith's book was one of several biographies written seeking to portray Hanson as the "first President of the United States.” But according to the historian Richard B. Morris, if a president of Congress were to be called the first president of the United States, "a stronger case could be made for Peyton Randolph of Virginia, the first president of the first and second Continental Congresses, or for John Hancock, the president of Congress when that body declared its independence."

In any case, after his one-year term as president of Congress, Hanson retired, citing poor health. He meant it too, dying in November 1783 while visiting a nephew’s plantation in Prince George’s County. His grave can be found there today. Of course, the grave of the totally real first president of the United States can be found at Mount Vernon in Virginia.

Tom Clavin is the bestselling author/co-author of 18 books, including his latest collaboration with Bob Drury, Throne of Grace, published in May by St. Martin’s Press. Please go to your local bookstore or to Bookshop.org, Amazon.com, BN.com, or tomclavin.com to purchase a copy.