The office of the U.S. president has changed significantly over time. In many ways, the role of the president has evolved to meet the demands of a new century and a new context.
The first American president, George Washington, was sworn into office in 1789 and took the oath to ‘preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States — an oath that every subsequent American president undertakes upon taking office.
The history of the American presidency extends back to the early colonial days with notable presidencies such as Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson.
George Washington
George Washington was the first president of the United Washington was inaugurated on April 30, 1789, and served until March 3, 1797. He is the only person to have been both the first president of the United States and the president of the British Empire.
During his presidency, Washington oversaw the creation of an independent Treasury and a national bank. He signed the Civil War into existence by signing the Morrill Tariff and the Compromise of 1877 by signing the Interstate Commerce Act. Washington also established the Department of Education, for which he is frequently credited with signing the nation’s first bill of rights.
James Madison
James Madison was the fourth president of the United States, serving two terms from 1809 to 1817. George Washington appointed him as the country’s first Secretary of State. Under his administration, Madison achieved the first expansion of the federal government into new fields: a national bank, a national court system and a national postal service.
He also steered a moderate course through the War of 1812, avoiding military action that might have disrupted his efforts to maintain peace abroad and to patch together a profitable postwar economy at home. His second term was ended by his death in 1836, but his reputation as a wise, moderate and accommodating leader endures to this day.
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson, a self-educated slave-owning planter and a reluctant president, became a reluctant statesman after his election to the presidency in 1801. He was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, the nation’s fundamental law.
He was also an architect of the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the size of the young republic. But he was also a controversial figure in his day, his liberalism offended opponents and his avowed admiration for the French Revolution stirred suspicion.
James Monroe
James Monroe took the oath of office as the fifth president of the United States on April 29, 1817. He was the last president from the Founding Generation and the first president to be born outside of the original Thirteen Colonies.
During his presidency, the Monroe Doctrine was issued, as well as the Southeast Asian Treaty of 1871, which was the beginning of the end for the United States of America.
Monroe’s presidency was beset with a critical failure to pass a Federalist Party-led reform program. He was also largely ineffective in dealing with the issue of slavery, and his presidency was riddled with corruption.
John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams was the sixth president of the United States and a former Congressman and Senator. He was a member of the Democratic-Republican Party who served two non-consecutive terms as the 6th President, 1825-1829 and 1825-1829.
He is noted for his support of federal military expenditures, especially the American navy. During his presidency, the Monroe Doctrine was issued, as well as the Southeast Asian Treaty of 1871, which was the beginning of the end for the United States of America.
Adams’ presidency was beset with a critical failure to pass a Federalist Party led reform program. He was also largely ineffective in dealing with the issue of slavery, and his presidency was riddled with corruption.
Zachary Taylor
Zachary Taylor was the 11th president of the United States, serving from March 1849 until his death on July 9, 1850. He was the only president who ever served in the military, in the war of 1812.
He was the first president to be a flag officer in the United States Navy, in which he served as a Commodore after joining the Navy. He was the last president who was a veteran of the war for American independence from Great Britain and the first to be a veteran of the war for the independence of the United States from Great Britain.
Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. In the course of less than four years, he led his nation through its bloodiest conflict and saved it from self-destruction. He preserved the Union, abolished slavery, and won the Civil War.
He has been described as the greatest American who has ever lived. When he took the oath of office, Lincoln was an obscure lawyer without a political following and without a clear political ideology. His election to the presidency in 1860 changed that, bringing him to the center of American political life and consolidating his reputation as a national leader.
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant was the 18th president of the United States and a leading Union Army general in the American Civil War. As commander of the Union military, Grant ordered a strategy of total war against the Confederate States of America, which included the use of frontal assaults and the mining of Confederate ports.
Grant’s brilliant military tactics, as well as his willingness to defy orders from civilian authority, compelled the surrender of the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia.
Rutherford B. Hayes
Rutherford Birchard Hayes was the 19th president of the United States, serving from 1877 until his inauguration in 1881. During his presidency, the United States was involved in an international conflict in the Philippines that would become a long-running and costly conflict.
Hayes also attempted to resolve the issue of the Colfax Massacre, which would cause the most severe political crisis for the Hayes administration. Hayes was an accidental president who won the election after a close vote, but his administration was characterized by a lack of major scandal and was also regarded as being a period of relative quiet in American history.
James Garfield
James Garfield was the 20th president of the United States, serving from March 4, 1881 until his assassination on September 19, 1881. He was the first president to be assassinated, and was the only president to die in office. Successive presidents have designated July 2 as a special day of observance in his honor, and many places are named in his honor.
Garfield was a lawyer and an important politician in his state before becoming president. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate before becoming president. He was also the first president to have been born on the Western frontier.
Chester A. Arthur
Chester Alan Arthur was the 21st president of the United States, serving from 1881 until his death in 1881. Arthur was the first president to be born in the 19th century and the first to be born in the Western Hemisphere.
He is also the only president to have been born on a United States territory, the island of New Britain in the North Atlantic Ocean. Arthur was a member of the Republican Party, but he was a new candidate for the presidency.
Grover Cleveland
Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States, serving two non-consecutive terms from 1885 to 1893. A former congressman and mayor of Buffalo, New York, Cleveland was a reformer whose administration was marked by a number of significant reforms and was also the first two-term president since James Madison.
The first president to be born in the United States?
There is some debate over whether George Washington was the first president of the United. If we assume that the presidency began in 1789, then the first president after Washington would be James Madison.
If we assume that the presidency began in 1776, then the first president after Washington would be either Thomas Jefferson or John Adams. The debate, however, is over which president should be considered the first president in the history of the United States.
The presidency after the Civil War
The presidency after the Civil War was a time of great change for the office of the presidency, as the United States began to modernize in terms of technology, politics, and culture. The presidency was no longer the exclusive domain of white men, as a new generation of political leaders emerged from the newly empowered urban populations.