Kathleen Bartoloni-Tuazon. For Fear of an Elective King

The 1789 controversy over what title to use in addressing the new president, George Washington, has always seemed curious. Considering that the founders had been able to write and then ratify an entirely new blueprint of government only a year earlier, why was there such a controversy over how to address the new president? As future generations have grown accustomed to informality across classes and ranks, it seems like an unimportant question. To the extent that we know about it, we generally attribute the controversy to John Adams. Adams misunderstood the nature of the new American regime insofar as he believed that the Constitution had created a mixed regime in which different types of government, i.e., monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, existed simultaneously and in conflict with one another. Desiring titles such as “His Majesty the President” or “His Highness the President of the United States of America, and Protector of their Liberties,” Adams wanted to create at least the image of a monarch if not the reality. The whole episode seems like an odd historical epiphenomenon that speaks more to the ridiculousness of John Adams than anything else.

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