Duel Over Dinner: President Washington's Clash with Governor Hancock Over State Sovereignty HD

On Wednesday, January 21, 2015 at 7:00 p.m. Cambridge Forum hosted historian Timothy H. Breen as he explored one of the first disagreements over the power relationship between federal and state governments. In 1789, George Washington returned to Massachusetts for the first time since 1776, touring all the states that had adopted the Constitution and elected him President of the U.S. of A. Most places welcomed Washington with pomp and ceremony, including a grand parade in Boston. Yet Washington found himself at odds with his old colleague John Hancock, oft-elected governor of Massachusetts. Who was the higher authority, the governor of a state or the chief executive of this new federal union? What did the arrangement those two statesmen worked out mean for the conflicts over states’ rights that persist till today? J. L. Bell moderated the discussion. T.H. Breen is the William Smith Mason Professor of American History Emeritus at Northwestern University and a James Marsh Professor at Large at the University of Vermont. This talk is based on research for his forthcoming book George Washington’s Journey: The President Forges a New Nation, to be published by Simon & Schuster later in 2015. He is the author of The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence (Oxford University Press, 2004) and American Insurgents, American Patriots: The Revolution of the People (Hill & Wang, 2010), among other studies of American history. Books will be available for purchase and signing at the Forum, courtesy of Harvard Book Store. J. L. Bell is a writer who specializes in the start of the American Revolution in New England. He maintains the Boston1775.net website and is particularly interested in the experiences of children in Revolutionary America. Bell recently completed a major study for the National Park Service on Gen. George Washington’s work in Cambridge during the siege of Boston. He serves as administrator for the Friends of the Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters. This talk was filmed at First Parish in Cambridge on January 21, 2015.