Washington’s Cabinet with Lindsay Chervinsky | BRI Scholar Talks

0:00 in washington’s final years he actually convened far fewer cabinet sessions and i think that’s because there were replacements he didn’t really trust or like as much and maybe he trusted his own judgment as well but as a result he left this precedent that the cabinet is intended to be a very personal advisory body for the president and so if the president wants to meet with them

0:21 every day great if the president never wants to meet with them that’s okay too and so that flexibility that’s very inherent in the institution has continued through the present day [Music] hi this is tony williams bringing you another episode of scholar talks

0:41 i am a senior fellow for the bill of rights institute and it’s my pleasure to have with us dr lindsey schravinski her new book is the cabinet george washington and the creation of an american institution so by way of introduction dr lindsey stravinsky is an expert on the cabinet

1:01 presidential history and u.s government institutions she is currently scholar in residence at the institute for thomas paine studies at ionia college and senior fellow at the international center for jefferson studies previously she was a historian at the white house historical association

1:22 and she writes frequently for a number of periodicals and has written the cabinet which is the topic of our talk today her website is lindsey sherwinski.com lindsay thank you very much for joining us thanks so much for having me i’m excited to be here today great well well i’m excited too and one of the main reasons is i you know i just love your book uh

1:44 and and the reason why is it’s just so well written so it’s such a smooth read uh and yet very enlightening and really on a topic that you don’t hear much about right i love the originality of the book because we hear so much about the dispute between hamilton and jefferson

2:05 and we hear a lot about the first president washington and the precedents he he laid down but but nothing on the cabinet you know i just i still can’t believe it as i was reading i was just trying to think of other but there is an other book on the subject and so uh really excited to talk about this today so so my first question is it is a really riveting account of the

2:26 washington administration and and how washington lays down these precedents for office and and really most importantly importantly hones in on uh how he governed with the help of the cabinet so my question uh first one is what was the constitutional and really practical basis

2:46 for the cabinet well that’s a great place to start especially because the constitution doesn’t actually contain the cabinet which is something that a lot of people don’t realize the delegates at the constitutional convention were very concerned about replicating the british cabinet and the corruption and the lack of transparency that they saw in that institution

3:07 and so they put two options in place for the president instead of a traditional cabinet the first was that the senate would serve as a council of foreign affairs and provide the advice and consent part they meant that advice quite literally right and the second option was to request written advice from the department secretaries about issues on

3:29 you know on their plate in their in their agenda and they really hoped if the advice was written that that would maintain the transparency and the responsibility that they were really hoping would be a central hallmark feature of the presidency and they could basically hold people responsible for good and bad decisions okay great and and yeah so you spent a

3:50 lot of time examining washington’s leadership style uh and so and and you really tie his wartime leadership as in his role as commander-in-chief of the continental army to uh how he used the cabin in his presidency so so what is that connection well once washington decided that a

4:12 cabinet was really essential to deal with the constitutional questions domestic insurrections or you know international crises that faced the first administration he then had to figure out how to manage the people in in the cabinet and um shape those interactions and there hadn’t been a cabinet for him to follow there was no model there was no guidelines

4:32 so like all humans he relied on his previous experiences and his primary form of leadership was war leadership and so he basically took the practices and the experiences he had with the councils of war and how he managed those very colorful personalities and copied and pasted them directly into the executive branch to use as a guideline

4:54 for his secretaries in their meetings and how those relationships would work right uh and uh so let’s dial in on that a little bit how does the cabinet come into being you know in a practical way and and who serves in that cabinet and why why are they chosen so

5:15 the cabinet very slowly evolves washington doesn’t actually convene the first cabinet meeting for two and a half years into his administration on november 26 1791 and he does so because he realizes that there are some issues on his plate that are basically too big for one department to handle alone not all issues can be handled by just the

5:36 secretary of treasury or just as secretary of war and so it made sense to bring together those individuals and get multiple perspectives and feedback so when he did there were four men that he invited to join him the first was secretary of war henry knox secretary of the treasury alexander hamilton secretary of state thomas jefferson

5:57 and then the attorney general edmund randolph and although randolph didn’t have a department of course the department of justice wasn’t created until 1870 he was a very important legal advisor to both washington and the other department secretaries so he was always included in those meetings and so and and before that i you really

6:18 described how he depended upon um you know written opinions and even informal gatherings sort of uh having dinner together and i i believe washington might even stop by if i remember correctly stop by their offices or have them to his office um for a chat or for a discussion about some important matter

6:39 can you talk a little bit about those yeah so because washington didn’t enter in the into the presidency expecting to create a cabinet he basically experimented with the options that were made available to him and then started to make basically tweaks or edits to try and best suit his needs as president so he did

6:59 visit the senate as the delegates anticipated and that frankly went pretty badly because the senate wanted to refer things to committee and talk privately and have him come back later and that was a very inefficient way to conduct diplomacy then washington started to work on that written advice component and trying to discuss the very complex

7:20 nuanced issues that face to the first government with parchment and quill was a very time consuming and frustrating process and so washington would start by sending a letter back and forth and then he would invite the secretaries to come and meet with him and discuss any additional questions or follow-up issues that came up in the course of revisions or edits that needed to be made to

7:41 policies and what i love about this process is you can see through their writings and through their interactions it is a real-time organic evolution of executive branch practices in response to the challenges that they are facing so you can really see how the presidency and the what eventually becomes the cabinet comes about very gradually

8:02 as they’re just trying to figure out how to how to handle all the things that are flying at them right and and so so why are they try did are they chosing for a geographical balance are they chosen because they were experts in their particular fields uh why were they chosen well washington had a couple of factors that he kept in

8:23 mind so first they had to be knowledgeable experienced and qualified which sounds like sort of a basic point but it was something that he was very attentive to he wanted them to have good experience for the type of work that they were doing they also had to have experience or knowledge that was different than his own so one of washington’s greatest strengths as a president was understanding his own limitations

8:45 and surrounding himself with people that could supplement that knowledge and provide feedback to him that would be really helpful and all the secretaries provided different or nuanced experiences and expertise he also wanted to have a personal relationship with them which makes sense because if you’re going to ask someone for advice you want to trust it so he knew all of

9:05 them and had worked with all of them before and lastly they did need to represent different parts of the nation and we look at the group now and we think well it’s for white guys how diverse can it really be but their contemporaries understood that this was a very diverse group because they represented different geographic regions different backgrounds education social

9:27 cultural factional economic interests and so when the different individuals in the states in virginia or new york or maine or pennsylvania saw this group they could see themselves represented in the administration and it helped build emotional ties both between the states but also between the states and the new

9:48 federal government and that was essential because those ties didn’t really exist in 1789 and washington was going to take every opportunity he could to try and strengthen those bonds right and uh sometimes the cabinet was sort of the the source of uh weakening those bonds if you will right

10:09 and and uh those sort of ideological uh or you know differing views of constitutionalism uh really came out pretty quickly right uh even though all the founders hated parties right uh these parties kind of coalesce around some of these key cabinet members uh can you address that a little bit absolutely

10:30 well you as you pointed out they they very quickly became a little bit more antagonistic than than anyone i think anticipated and that is for a couple of reasons so i’m pretty convinced that hamilton and jefferson wouldn’t have gotten along regardless of the circumstances because they came from such different backgrounds and every single way that they chose to represent

10:51 themselves as americans as men how they presented their masculinity was just completely different on top of which they also disagreed about pretty much every fundamental policy issue whether it was which country the united states should ally itself with where the united states should put its federal resources who was the

11:12 ideal citizen you name it they had diametrically opposed views so when they were in the cabinet once they started meeting regularly they became convinced that the other person was this mortal threat to the future of the republic and so unintentionally the cabinet actually kind of facilitated and hurried along the development of the

11:33 first political parties or at least the first political factions because they were together so often and they they saw this other person as this threat that they had to fight against and to try and take down in order to preserve what they saw was the ideal version of the republic and so they did they engaged in sort of various nefarious behind-the-scenes

11:54 actions to try and take down uh the other person right what are some of the i can give a few examples i mean that’s right sure yeah i mean these are such great stories and we think that you know politics are nasty today and they are but they were then too so you know for example jefferson would regularly slip madison insights from what had been

12:15 happening in the cabinet madison was in the house of representatives at that point and at one point jefferson even wrote up a list of basically denunciations that he wanted madison to pass in the house denunciations of hamilton and his agenda while jefferson was still secretary of state and in theory they were anonymous but everyone knew who wrote

12:35 them so it’s just this remarkable political performance where everyone knows where this is coming from and it’s like you know very literally the call is coming from within the house and um you know hamilton was not necessarily any better he maybe was a little bit more open about his antagonisms but he frequently went behind jefferson’s back to try and undermine his foreign policy

12:57 to negotiate with the french and british foreign ministers which he was not really supposed to be doing so they are very colorful figures which actually i think makes for a better story right well the book is filled with great stories um and so uh and speaking of a great story how did the cabinet play that really significant role in the first

13:18 major foreign policy crisis uh washington trying to decide whether he has a constitutional authority to issue a proclamation of neutrality in these wars between britain and france yeah so the this question comes up in early 1793 when france declares war on great britain and pretty much everyone agrees

13:39 including jefferson that the united states really had to stay out of the war because it was not equipped physically emotionally financially to participate in international warfare but then actually carving out a neutral policy is much more complicated than it sounds and so they had to figure out what they were supposed to do and the constitution is relatively quiet

14:00 on the subject it says that the president with the advice and consent of the senate can make treaties but this wasn’t really a treaty situation so washington had a couple of options he could either call an emergency session of congress he could wait until congress came back into session almost six months later or he could take action and assert neutrality and then try and

14:22 figure out how to enforce that policy and the cabinet very much encouraged him to do so which is remarkable because while they disagreed about what sort of the nuances of neutrality should be jefferson and hamilton worked together to encourage washington to carve out a sphere of influence over diplomacy and so in doing so they

14:43 were strengthening the president not because they would be more powerful but because the presidency would be more powerful which is a pretty remarkable precedent that they set for future presidents in diplomacy as well right and i thought that was very interesting that you know both hamilton and jefferson being on opposite eye the sides of most constitutional questions were all working together as you point

15:05 out to strengthen the presidency um and and the cabinet just started meeting a lot more frequently in in an actual meeting together rather than just these written opinions yeah so in 1793 the cabinet met at a high watermark point of 51 meetings which was definitely the most of any year in washington’s presidency

15:26 and most of those meetings actually took place in the summer in philadelphia washington had a relatively small office it was about 15 by 21 feet and very full of furniture and of course there was no air conditioning and we know it was a hot and humid summer because there was a really bad outbreak of yellow fever and so just imagine these two men that despise each other

15:47 openly at this point meeting for several hours a day sometimes up to five days per week to try and hammer out these details in this little claustrophobic room and you can get a sense of why their relationships only deteriorated from that point well you describe it vividly in the book so i really appreciate that

16:07 so uh how does the cabinet help shape washington’s response to a major domestic crisis uh during the whiskey rebellion in the following year so washington was faced with a fairly similar question just the following year which was congress was again out of session a rebellion had broken out in western pennsylvania

16:27 and he had to figure out what to do and this time he had four options so again he could convene an emergency session of congress he could wait for congress to come back several months later he could leave it to the states because it was a domestic issue or he could take action and assert presidential authority over this domestic question

16:47 and again the cabinet almost immediately encourages him to sideline the state governments and sideline congress and assert presidential jurisdiction over a domestic issue which traditionally we think of as either the purview of congress or of state governments and while they sometimes had differences of opinion about how best to assert

17:09 presidential authority they all agreed that presidential authority should be exerted and then spent the next several months basically brow beating the pennsylvania state officials into compliance with their final decisions which are some of the most spectacular history letters ever because they’re so snarky and so sarcastic um and it’s really a really fascinating

17:30 moment again where the cabinet is helping the president carve out this jurisdiction that wasn’t necessarily anticipated right and uh yeah it was a great exchange of letters and and really brought out that principle of federalism as as you’re talking about and you know trying to establish that their proper balance you know early on in the republic and it it really struck me also how you

17:51 alluded to how uh you know the cabinet you know had very much shae’s rebellion on their mind you know only a few years before that you know what um six years or ten years before that um and in addition to that you know that washington wants to establish you know this constitutional rule of law you know that congress passes the law

18:11 and it’s his job and and the executive branch’s job to enforce the law is am i on the right track here yeah absolutely i mean they felt very strongly that it was excuse me they felt very strongly that it was the federal government’s legal right to put forth taxation and then to enforce it and they cared much

18:32 less about the actual money than they did about the principle which is why washington was very quick to grant amnesty and clemency to the individuals that were rounded up because he didn’t really care about them serving a prison sentence he cared about enforcing the principle but i would also add and he brought this up so so well with shea’s rebellion

18:53 at this point all four men who were in the cabinet had served in the revolutionary war and had served with washington and had seen what happens when the federal government doesn’t have the right to collect funds and to um you know enforce taxation they had seen what happened when you let people sort of run wild if you will and so they deeply

19:14 feared anarchy and they deeply feared an incompetent and impotent federal government and so we’re very committed to that principle across the board all right great all right final question uh so what important precedence does washington and his cabinet lay down for future presidents particularly regarding

19:35 the cabinet oh there are so many it’s hard to it’s almost hard to count because washington crafted so much of the presidency and so much of the presidency today is still based on norm and custom but especially so with the cabinet so in washington’s final years he actually convened far fewer cabinet sessions and i think

19:55 that’s because there were replacements he didn’t really trust or like as much and maybe he trusted his own judgment as well but as a result he left this precedent that the cabinet is intended to be a very personal advisory body for the president and so if the president wants to meet with them every day great if the president never wants to meet with them that’s okay too

20:16 and so that flexibility that’s very inherent in the institution has continued through the present day where each new president crafts the relationships that they want to have and picks the advisors they want to have and those relationships have very little public or congressional oversight and so i think that’s really

20:36 truly one of the biggest and also most underappreciated legacies that washington left for his successors because not all presidents are frankly up to up to the task of managing that group of individuals and the ones that do really great are the presidents that we remember like lincoln and fdr and the ones that do badly generally end up at the bottom of our presidential

20:58 ranking list right great lindsay thank you so much for joining us the book is the cabinet george washington and the creation of an american institution uh that was really insightful uh thank you very much for joining us thanks so much for having me and thank you for your kind words about the book it’s always after you spend so many years on a project it’s such a joy when people

21:19 actually enjoy reading it right i really did so if you like this video please be sure to subscribe to our channel and offer any comments below we offer new content every tuesday and thursday including primary source close reads scholar talks like this wonderful talk with lindsey stravinski and homework help videos for students

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