The presidency of the United States of America is seen as one of the most powerful institutions inside the North-American political system and even around the world. I cannot deny the fact that this statement may be partially true, but to really have a deep look at this political position we must first have a global understanding of its starting point and the path that it had to walk in order to achieve such a conformable position. The presidency, and the chief executive, has shifted in many ways during its more than 220 years of history, and these ups and downs are as important as the political principles assigned to the executive branch by the Constitution or any other political agreement.

     The aim of this new set of articles that are going to be published in Sarasuati is to walk the path hand-by-hand of the American presidents from George Washington to the present-day one. Even though history is actually made by every-day citizens, the figure of the president can be a general characterization of a historic period, politic movement or economic tendency. Therefore, I am not going to focus my attention only on biographic facts, which would probably be much better explained in many other web sites, but in a critic view of the presidents and the global context in which they lived. Some presidencies have been somehow idealized through the years and an impartial vision has been assumed many times. Far from the truth, I think that an impartial and real historic description of such a figure is quite complex, so I won’t try to take that for granted in my writings. On the contrary, I’ll do my best to portray the Presidents of the United States in a personal and different way, with both their flaws and virtues, with academic rigor and sometimes far from the mainstream picture.

     The starting point is obviously going to be George Washington. I’ll draw the attention of his presidency towards the important precedents that he will create in the executive administration. He was probably the first world-wide image of America, together with Benjamin Franklin, and an immense historic figure of the United States. However, his presidency had to face many administrative complexities, because he needed to create an executive body, he was the first one to deal with the legislative chambers and to worry about federal and state competences. Furthermore, he also had to take unpopular political decisions and to cope with international difficulties, something he was not used to because he had always been a popular figure. The criticism that he would have to suffer under his administration would present a character that has lived quite comfortably under his idealized image and who would not rerun for a third term because of the ungrateful job that has been assigned to him.

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The The presidents of the USA by Iván Matellanes (Licenciado en Filologia Inglesa), unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Spain License.