THE FIRST PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES
Rebuilding a city and forming a new nation is such a great task that you
can readily believe it was not accomplished without some difficulty. The
colonies were free from the rule of the English King, but it was
necessary for them to learn to govern themselves.
Each of the new States now had its own government. It was thought by
many that there should be some powerful central government to control
all the States. So after a great deal of deliberation a convention was
held in Philadelphia over which George Washington presided. After four
months of hard work the present Constitution of the United States was
given to each State to be approved.
There was strong need for this step to be taken, but there were a
great many who did not want it, because they thought it would give the
President as much power as a king, and as they had gone to some cost to
rid themselves of a king, they did not wish another. Those who wanted a
central government were called Federalists. Those who did not want it
were called Anti-Federalists.
In New York there was one man who did everything that man could do
to convince others that the central government was the best thing for
the good of the new nation. His name was Alexander Hamilton. He was
a young man who had been, ever since he was a boy, a friend of George
Washington; who had lived in Washington's family and had fought as an
officer side by side with Washington, and was a man of much power and
deep learning.
This Constitution of the United States had been approved by nine of the
States, when, in June, 1788, a convention was held to determine whether
New York was to approve it or not. At this convention Alexander Hamilton
spoke eloquently, in an effort to have the Constitution approved.
The convention was still meeting in July, having come to no decision,
when the followers of Hamilton, the Federalists, had a great parade
through the streets of New York. It was the first big parade in the
city, and the grandest spectacle that had ever been seen in America
up to this time.
[Illustration: Celebration of the Adoption of the Constitution.]
The most imposing part of it was a great wooden ship on wheels, made to
represent the Ship of State, and called the "Federal Ship Hamilton."
The parade was a mile and a half long and there were five thousand men
in it. It passed along the streets of the city, past the fort, and on
up Broadway over the tree-covered hill above the Common, and on to the
Bayard Farm beyond the Collect Pond. There a halt was made and the
thousands of people sat down on the grass to a dinner.
Three days after this the convention approved of the Constitution for
the State of New York. And so the majority of the States having agreed
to it, in the next year George Washington was chosen as the first
President of the United States, and the city of New York was selected
as the temporary seat of the general government.