Title of ‘president’ of the U.S. was complicated by Founders

OPINION:

Thursday is the 280th anniversary of the birth of William Maclay, not exactly a household word, even in the homes of historians. He has a singular claim to fame, namely, as a senator in the first Congress under the Constitution meeting in 1789. Then a Senate committee presented to the entire body its title for the chief executive of the United States (recall that the Constitutional Convention didn’t settle this matter so it was incumbent upon Congress to do so). The recommended upper-house title: “His Highness the President of the United States and Protector of the Rights of Same.”

Mind you, this was a big issue. And for three weeks before the committee reported, a floor debate on the matter brought forth all sorts of titles: “Most Illustrative and Excellent President,” “His Elective Highness,” “His Exalted Highness” and “His Majesty the President.” To be sure, the only precedent for describing the chief executive officer of the Continental Congress during the American Revolution was the appellation “President” or “Presiding Officer.” For no major country of the world had elected a leader akin to the American governing document.

The driving force behind the pretentious title in the committee’s report was Vice President John Adams who, in presiding over the Senate, kept referring to President George Washington’s inaugural address as “his most gracious speech.” Adams’ other references to the president were also drawn from the words prefixing any person of British royalty, such as “excellency” or “highness.” Most senators took little offense to Adams’ language and even mimicked it — except for a few led by an obscure member from Pennsylvania by the name of Maclay, who was successful in tabling this highfalutin title.

Maclay was born in 1737 in New Garden, Pa., and spent his early adulthood studying law, surveying and fighting in the French and Indian War. After holding military and political positions in Pennsylvania during the Revolution, Maclay was elected to the first Senate, later served in his state’s House of Representatives and finally as a county judge. What distinguished Maclay from his more famous contemporaries was that he kept a detailed journal in which he recorded his view of the debates in the upper house. The work was secret and didn’t find its way into print until 1880, 76 years after Maclay’s passing.

Quite frankly, Maclay was no friend of John Adams, attributing all the “fooleries, fopperies, fineries and pomp of royal etiquette” to the vice president. Maclay’s finest moment came in the debate over the title the Senate committee had recommended for the president. Maclay first recorded Adams’ defense and then his own position:

“Gentlemen [said Adams], I must tell you that it is you and the President that have the making of titles. Suppose the President to have the appointment of Mr. Jefferson at the court of France. Mr. Jefferson is, in virtue of that appointment, the most illustrious, the most powerful and what not. But the President must be himself something that includes all the dignities of the diplomatic corps and something greater still. What will the common people of foreign countries, what will the sailors and soldiers say, ’George Washington, President of the United States’? They will despise him to all eternity. This is all nonsense to the philosopher, but so is all government whatever.”

“The above,” wrote Maclay, “I recollect with great precision, but he said 50 more things, equally injudicious, which I do not think worth minuting. … Having experienced relief by the interference of sundry members, I had determined not to say another word, but this new leaf appeared so absurd I could not help some animadversions on it. I rose:

“Mr. President, the Constitution of the United States has designated our Chief Magistrate by the appellation of the President of the United States of America. This is his title of office, nor can we alter, add to or diminish it without infringing the Constitution. … As to what the common people, soldiers and sailors of foreign countries may think of us, I do not think it imports us much. Perhaps the less they think, or have occasion to think of us, the better.”

The House of Representatives agreed with Maclay, and about his only other solace was in the title his supporters reserved for Vice President Adams — namely, “His Rotundity.”

• Thomas V. DiBacco is professor emeritus at American University.