Benjamin Franklin at the Helm

In an alternate timeline George Washington's health is seriously deteriorating by the time of the first U.S. Presidential election. Even though the office was created specifically for him he refuses to run telling the county he wants to spend what time he has left with his family at Mount Vernon. Benjamin Franklin (who is in better health than in our time line) is tapped for the Presidency. Without any other serious competition he wins in a landslide with John Adams gaining the Vice Presidency. Lets say he lives to serve one full term as President how does this affect the early country? What sort of policies do you think we might see pushed by a Franklin administration that were not pursued by Washington? How would he have handled crisis such as the Whiskey rebellion? How would he have been viewed by other Nations?
 
Big, big changes. First of all, I do not think JA would be VP. A Southerner (and almost certainly a Virginian) would be necessary for sectional balance. Thomas Jefferson comes to mind but Patrick Henry was actually much better know at the time, although he had been an anti-Federalist.
Franlkin was certainly a Federalist and a nationalist but I am not sure he would have been as supportive as GW was in supporting a Hamilton like program of assumption, tariffs, internal taxes and a national bank.
Would there even have been a Hamilton program? AH was not GW's first choice for the Treasury but if Franklin had offered the post to his fellow Pennsylvanian, Robert Morris (as GW) did, would Morris have turned Franklin down and recommended the young AH?
Without a Hamilton program, including a tax on whisky, would there have been a Whisky Rebellion? If there had been, I think Franklin would have been much less likely to threaten force against his fellow Pennsylvanians and much more likely to try to talk things out. Would this have just emboldened the anti-tax rebels?
On the other hand, Franklin was much more anti-slavery than GW. As a practical matter, there was not very much a President Franklin could do about slavery but he could indulge in a symbolic acts which might support the manumission movement in the North and piss off the Southern planters.
I don't think Franklin's foreign policy would have been much different from GW's. Neutrality was an obvious policy for a weak new nation.
Finally, a President Franklin could devote a significant amount of his time to supporting educational and scientific developments in the new country. Perhaps GW's proposal of a national university could have been realized by a President Franklin.

Your obedient servant
AH
 
Big, big changes. First of all, I do not think JA would be VP. A Southerner (and almost certainly a Virginian) would be necessary for sectional balance. Thomas Jefferson comes to mind but Patrick Henry was actually much better know at the time, although he had been an anti-Federalist.AH

A Virginian is likely, but my money would be on Jefferson. He had worked with Franklin before, and they got along & respected each other.


Franlkin was certainly a Federalist and a nationalist but I am not sure he would have been as supportive as GW was in supporting a Hamilton like program of assumption, tariffs, internal taxes and a national bank.

Franklin was more of a moderate, I'd say. He would almost certainly have opposed the more ambitious Hamiltonian schemes.


Would there even have been a Hamilton program? AH was not GW's first choice for the Treasury but if Franklin had offered the post to his fellow Pennsylvanian, Robert Morris (as GW) did, would Morris have turned Franklin down and recommended the young AH?

Franklin would most likely not go for Hamilton; he disliked Hamilton's "aristocratic" tendencies and bellicose attitude.


Without a Hamilton program, including a tax on whisky, would there have been a Whisky Rebellion? If there had been, I think Franklin would have been much less likely to threaten force against his fellow Pennsylvanians and much more likely to try to talk things out. Would this have just emboldened the anti-tax rebels?

There would have been no Whiskey rebellion without the tax. Of course, the Whiskey rebellion was one of the factors in ultimately establishing the power of the general government. Without it, federal power might possibly be diminished compared to OTL.


On the other hand, Franklin was much more anti-slavery than GW. As a practical matter, there was not very much a President Franklin could do about slavery but he could indulge in a symbolic acts which might support the manumission movement in the North and piss off the Southern planters.

(...)

Finally, a President Franklin could devote a significant amount of his time to supporting educational and scientific developments in the new country. Perhaps GW's proposal of a national university could have been realized by a President Franklin.

Both of which would be interesting... (As a side note; Jefferson also favored an emphasis on education, so having Jefferson as VP would only strengthen that last development, I imagine.)
 
Morris would still have declined the position in favor of Hamilton. But Franklin and Hamilton don't have anything like the full trust and confidence in each other that Washington and Hamilton did; I think Franklin would still find Hamilton's arguments in favor sound and compelling, but I agree he'd be very reluctant to use force to crush the Whiskey Rebellion and certainly wouldn't send Hamilton to do the job. So there's a very good chance it balloons into something bigger.

John Adams as SCOTUS?

Without the habit of military command and two cabinet officers who served under him, I don't think Franklin would firmly subordinate his cabinet; I think we see something more like collective government from the beginning, probably reinforced by Franklin's determination to serve a single term. I don't think this will be a positive change, as 'fractious and headstrong' is a polite way to describe the lot of them.

1792 election will be exciting; I'd be particularly amused if John Adams does indeed become SCOTUS and also campaigns (is campaigned for, if you prefer) for the Presidency, establishing that as a fairly normal thing.
 
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