Did I become president?

1. Did I become president? • Benjamin Franklin • No, but I was a publisher, diplomat, and inventor. • George Washington Learn about all U.S. presidents here. • Yes, I was your first president (1789-1797). • James Madison • Yes, I was your fourth president (1809-1817). • John Adams • Yes, I was your second president (1787-1801). • Patrick Henry • No, but I had a way with words. • Thomas Paine • No, but I wrote some powerful pamphlets. • King George III • No, but I was king of England for a very long time (1760-1820). • Thomas Jefferson • Yes, I was your third president (1801-1809). • Alexander Hamilton • No, but I helped George Washington design our government.

2. Benjamin Franklin

3. Benjamin Franklin Am I on your currency? Yes. Look in your wallet. No luck? Then look here -->

4. George Washington • He fought in the French and Indian War (1756-1763), though not very successfully. • He was elected to the House of Burgesses in 1759. • He was selected Commander of the Continental Army • He became our first president (1789-1797). • He arranged for the freedom of his slaves in his will. Learn more.

5. George Washington (1789-1797) Am I on your currency? Yes. I’m the first one there too.

6. James Madison

7. James Madison (1809-1817) Am I on your currency? No. But I was highly responsible for your Bill of Rights.

8. Alexander Hamilton

9. Alexander Hamilton Am I on your currency? Yes, of course, on the ten. Look at me.

10. Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809)

11. Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) Am I on your currency? Yes, but it’s a funny amount.

12. John Adams

13. John Adams (1797-1801) Am I on your currency? Maybe I should not have defended the British soldiers who committed the Boston massacre. No. Why would I be? I was only your second president. No, I’m glad I did, because I believed in justice above all.

14. King George III

15. Patrick Henry

16. Thomas Paine

17. So, was I ever president? • Thomas Jefferson • King George III • Alexander Hamilton • Benjamin Franklin • Patrick Henry • John Adams • George Washington • Thomas Paine • James Madison

18. Did Washington ever lie?

19. Yes Despite the vows of public silence, the taboo topic came up in an awkwardly personal way the following year, soon after the federal government made its scheduled move from New York to Philadelphia. Attorney General Randolph alerted Washington to the awkward fact that Pennsylvania law allowed any slave who was resident for six months within the state to demand emancipation. Washington asked Tobias Lear to look into the law in order to determine if the six-month rule could be skirted by removing his household slaves to Mount Vernon before the time expired, then returning them to Philadelphia to start the clock again. Part of his concern was financial, since the loss of any dower slaves would require him to reimburse the Custis estate. He was especially concerned with losing two of his most trusted slaves, Hercules and Paris. He instructed Lear to have Martha take them back with her to Mount Vernon, but without letting anyone except Martha know the motive for the trip. ‘I wish to both have it accomplished under pretext that may deceive both them and the public,’ he confided to Lear. When Hercules got wind of the scheme, he expressed a sense of personal insult that his loyalty to Washington was not taken for granted. Eventually Hercules was allowed to stay in Philadelphia, where he remained Washington’s highly valued cook until the end of the second presidential term, at which point he absconded, much to Washington’s surprise and chagrin. The incident served to expose the widening gap on the slavery question north and south of the Potomac, as well as the gap between Washington’s professed convictions about slavery and his dependence on enslaved servants. Joseph J. Ellis, His Excellency : George Washington (Westminster, MD: Knopf Publishing Group, 2004), 201-203.

20. Alexander Hamilton: An affair, gossip, and a duel. Hamilton might have risen to the presidency if not for a scandal in 1797. A pamphlet published that year revealed Hamilton's affair with a woman named Maria Reynolds and linked him to a scheme by Reynolds' husband to illegally manipulate federal securities. Hamilton cleared any doubts about financial impropriety, but badly damaged his reputation. In 1800 Hamilton's old enemy, Aaron Burr, obtained and published a confidential document Hamilton had written that was highly critical of Federalist John Adams. In the New York gubernatorial race of 1804, Hamilton spoke out against Aaron Burr, the vice president. After reading in a newspaper that Hamilton had expressed a "despicable opinion" about him during the campaign, Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel. They met on the dueling grounds at Weehawken, New Jersey on July 11, 1804. Both men fired their pistols. Only Hamilton was hit. He died of his wounds the next day. Source: PBS. Click here for more.

21. John Adams: A new nation for all…sort of. • Though President John Adams and Mercy Otis Warren were lifelong friends, Adams complained about his portrayal in her three-volume history of the American Revolution. "History," he told her, "is not the province of ladies.” Click here fore more. • Abigail Adams writes to her husband, John Adams, in 1776: • “…in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.” • “Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands.” • “Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could.” • John Adams replies: • "As to your extraordinary code of laws, I cannot but laugh.” Click here for more.

22. Thomas Jefferson: All men are created equal..sort of. • Thomas Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings (daughter of his father-in-law). • Shortly after the DNA test results in November 1998 established that the Jefferson and Hemings descendants were related, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation formed a research committee consisting of nine members of the foundation staff, including four with Ph.D.s. In January 2000, the committee reported its finding that the weight of all known evidence - from the DNA study, original documents, written and oral historical accounts, and statistical data - indicated a high probability that Thomas Jefferson was the father of Eston Hemings, and that he was perhaps the father of all six of Sally Hemings' children. • Thomas Jefferson freed all of Sally Hemings' children: Beverly and Harriet were allowed to leave Monticello in 1822; Madison and Eston were released in Jefferson's 1826 will. Jefferson gave freedom to no other nuclear slave family. • Thomas Jefferson did not free Sally Hemings. She was permitted to leave Monticello by his daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph not long after Jefferson's death in 1826, and went to live with her sons Madison and Eston in Charlottesville. Click here for more.

23. Sources Currency and Portraits: http://www.trackthetime.com/fun/us-currency-portraits http://www.constitution.org/cs_image.htm http://www.philadelphia-reflections.com/reflections.php?content=topics_php/indigents_.php More on the Presidents: http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ Other sources linked on specific slides.