George Washington: First Annual Message to Congress

Impact

Washington's First Annual Message had an immediate impact on Congress and the nation. Within two months Congress submitted bills for Washington's signature dealing with naturalization, copyrights and patents, and weights and measures. Congress also began its consideration of Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton's economic plan one week after Washington's First Annual Message, although this matter would prove far more contentious.

In the areas of foreign affairs and in providing a peacetime military establishment, Washington indicated that he wanted to cooperate with Congress. In a letter to Sir Edward Newenham, a member of the Irish Parliament who had supported American interests, just one week after the address, Washington sensed that what America needed was “the sanction of time to give it that stability which can be expected from any human fabric” (Washington to Newenham, January 15, 1790; Twohig, vol. 4, p. 585). He hoped that his speech would clearly show the amicable relations already existing between Congress and him.

This attitude, however, soon changed, as many members of Congress feared any kind of a standing army, disliked the provisions of the Treaty of New York (August 7, 1790) with the Creek Indians, and abhorred the cavalier manner in which Washington sought the Senate's confirmation of that treaty. Divisions over Hamilton's economic plan and foreign affairs widened the breach between the administration and a significant minority of Congress. The First Annual Message was thus, perhaps, the high point in cooperation between Congress and the president.