Critisizing our President

                                The Constitutionist

Free Newsletter

Items, Analysis, Opinions and News Gathered from Everywhere

By Steven Maikoski, Author: “The Real Constitution and its Real Enemies”

and soon: The Constitutionist Speaks

constitutionist@protonmail.com 

8-5-2026

Criticizing Our President

Steven Maikoski 8-5-26

Last month I was reading about how the president was turning senile; how, in his dotage, he has been the puppet of officers close to him. It has been claimed that he has easily been manipulated into doing things he did not understand.

But this wasn’t about our current president, nor the one before him. Nor the one before him.  It was about our first president, George Washington, and his relationship with his trusted Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton.

Those charges were made by esteemed politicians, namely Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and James Madison. They were printed in the Aurora Newspaper, owned by Benjamin Franklin Bache (Ben Franklin’s grandson), which criticized the Jay Treaty and accused Washington of being too pro-British, thereby betraying the French Alliance.

Before Jefferson served as Washington’s Secretary of State, he was the Colonies’ Ambassador to France.  He resigned as Washington’s Secretary of State after serving nearly four years. His resignation from the cabinet wasn’t enough; he had to lace it with personal attacks.

President Washington stayed above the fray by never responding to the criticism publicly, although he did in private letters to friends.  He finessed his protest in his Farewell Address, in which he wrote “…against the baneful [seriously harmful] effects of the spirit of party generally.”

“This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.”

George Washington wanted to return to Mount Vernon after his first term as President, but was urged to stay for a second term because political forces were already challenging his leadership and the course of our new nation.  He stayed, but wanted to retire and believed he had earned it. He and Hamilton had served in the War of Independence, sleeping in cold tents and risking their lives in battle, while the academics Madison and Jefferson, who never had such discomfort, now challenged him.  

When Washington finally returned to his estate, he lived for two years before he died.  A little over a year after that, Thomas Jefferson visited Mount Vernon.  Martha Washington said that the two worst days of her life were when her husband died, and when Jefferson came to Mount Vernon. 

For those who wish to study some old history, yet don’t know where to start, I highly recommend George Washington’s farewell address as your starting article.  It is beautifully written and tenders some of the best political advice in history.  It is easily found on the Internet and is in every one of my books.